Historic site · Egypt
Shali Old Town
شالي · قلعة شالي
Siwa's walled medieval hill town of salt-and-clay houses, restored so visitors can walk its lanes, gates and mosques.
Where it is
29.2013, 25.5178
Why go
Shali, whose Siwi name simply means 'city', is the fortified town Siwans built on a hill in the twelfth century AD and lived inside for generations. Its walls and houses are made of a salt-saturated clay that sets almost like cement, yet a heavy rainstorm in 1926 left much of it in ruins. A restoration largely paid for by the European Union reopened the alleys, repaired most of the circuit wall and restored the Old Mosque and the Tandi Mosque. Visitors now wander through the gates and lanes between ruined houses, wells and mosques.
Near Shali Old Town
Archaeological site
Gebel al-Mawta (Mountain of the Dead)
Limestone hill north of Shali in Siwa, cut with tombs from the 26th Dynasty to Roman times, including the painted tomb of Si-Amun.
1 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Archaeological site
Temple of the Oracle of Amun (Aghurmi)
Ruined temple on the Aghurmi rock in Siwa that housed the oracle of Amun consulted by Alexander the Great in 331 BC.
3 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Museum
Marsa Matrouh Museum
A two-floor antiquities museum inside Marsa Matrouh's Misr Public Library, covering the city's history as Egypt's western gateway.
291 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Monument
El Alamein German War Memorial
Octagonal castle-like memorial on the coast west of Alexandria where 4,313 German war dead are buried, inaugurated in 1959.
374 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ