Rosetta
The Best Collection Of Ottoman Domestic Architecture In Egypt Tall Brick Merchant Houses With Mashrabiya Screens, Several Restored In The Delta Town Where A French Officer Found The Rosetta Stone In 1799. The Stone Itself Has Been In The British Museum Since 1802, Which This Row Says Rather Than Letting Anyone Travel Hoping · Rosetta, Beheira
Rosetta - Rashid in Arabic - sits where the western branch of the Nile reaches the Mediterranean, sixty-five kilometres east of Alexandria, and for three centuries it was the richer port of the two. What that money built is still standing: tall Ottoman merchant houses of patterned brick with mashrabiya screens over the windows, several of them restored and a dozen more decaying in the lanes, which together make the best collection of Ottoman domestic architecture in Egypt. There is also a mosque with a forest of reused ancient columns, and out at the river bar a fort that Qaitbay built and Napoleon's engineers rebuilt - and it was a French officer working on that fort in 1799 who turned up the Rosetta Stone. The stone has been in the British Museum since 1802, which is worth knowing before you travel. The town itself is run down, barely visited and genuinely interesting, which is an unusual combination this close to Alexandria.
At the western mouth of the Nile 65 km east of Alexandria, with Qaitbay's fort out at the river bar, Rosetta, Beheira, Egypt
The restored merchant houses keep daytime museum hours with small tickets, and in practice several are locked with a caretaker nearby who will open them - ask at the first one you find rather than concluding the town is closed. Hours shrink in winter and around Friday prayers. The Zaghloul mosque is a working mosque and is visited outside prayer times with the usual modesty. Fort Julien out at the river mouth is open in daylight, sometimes staffed and sometimes not, and reached by a short drive or boat. Nothing here is a timed-entry site and nothing needs booking. Microbuses and taxis run from Alexandria in about ninety minutes; the town is small enough to walk once you are in it, and there is no reason to stay the night.