Ramses Square

Named for a pharaoh whose colossus stood here — until the city’s fumes drove it out.

In 1955 a colossal statue of Ramses II was hauled from ancient Memphis and set up before the railway station, giving the square his name. Half a century of traffic vibration and pollution threatened the granite, and in 2006 the colossus was moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum near the pyramids. The square kept the name; the pharaoh went home to the desert edge.