Getting to Alexandria and on board Swan Hellenic's Minerva was rather like a military operation, which was very fitting given my first excursion was to El Alamein, famous for the battle that proved the turning point of Britain's fortunes in the Second World War.
My flight landed in Cairo at 12.40am, by 1.15am I was in a car and heading out of the airport, 4am I checked into the Hilton hotel in Alexandria, 7am I checked out again and by 8am I was stepping on board Minerva. At 9am I disembarked again for the excursion.
It was a good two-hour drive from the port to the museum and cemeteries at El Alamein, which was a good chance to see what the countryside is like. Amazingly, it's almost one big building site, with one resort after another going up along Egypt's the north coast.
What was even more surprising was that they were all called Marina, which must be very confusing if you are trying to find your way back one evening, and that they all looked deserted. I know it is out of season - the chill wind bore testament to that - but there was no sign of life at all. To be honest, the area anyway looked so bleak, I can't imagine who would want to go and stay there.
That bleakness, without the hotels, is what met our army during the war. It's hard to think what the young lads must have thought about being stationed in an area many had probably never even heard of.
First stop on the excursion was El Alamein Military Museum, where there are displays of what life was like and some of the weapons that were salvaged. It was all done at a bit of a gallop, but was interesting, and then it was on to the British cemetery, where a wreath was laid and a prayer said for the people who died.
Some 7,367 men from Britain, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Greece, France and Malaysia are buried in the Commonwealth cemetery, which is beautifully looked after by the War Graves Commission; another 11,900 are names on the wall because their bodies were never found. It's a very moving sight.
By now the wind was whistling across the cemetery so hard that we were almost blown back to the coach. "It's not usually like this," Farouk, our assistant guide, assured me (in Egypt, everyone comes in pairs, which is a brilliant way of keeping unemployment at a minimum).
Mind you, when he picked me up from the hotel that morning he said it was going to get into the 80s!
Two hours later I was back on board Minerva and at 6pm that evening, we sailed out of the port at Aexandria, leaving Egypt and on the way to Libya.
Jane Archer
