Travel in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean was generally pretty consistent. The winds favoured west-to-east travel, so the journey east would be a bit shorter than the journey back home. But the trip could be delayed by storms or pirates or other unexpected circumstances, and the length of the trip depended on the type of ship and what it was doing. A small cog with just a few crew members and some merchandise might be faster than a big galley full of soldiers, but on the other hand a galley with oars might travel faster than a cog with a simple sail.

It might also depend on the time of year. There was a “sailing season” in the spring and summer, roughly April-September. You could travel during the winter but the winds were different and the weather was stormier. A ship travelling in November or February, for example, would be exceptional.

“From the middle of September to 10 November it was considered dangerous to be at sea and from then until 10 March impossible; those who wanted to avoid undue risks set sail between 26 May and 14 September.” (Öhler, pg. 11)

Venice was one of the major ports from which a merchant/pilgrim/crusader would sail to the east; the others were Genoa and Marseille. Alexandria was one possible destination but from Venice you might be more likely to sail to Crete, one of the ports on Cyprus (e.g., Famagusta, Limassol, Nicosia), or a port at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, especially when the crusader states still existed there (Acre, Tyre, Jaffa, etc). Theoretically Venetian and other Christian merchants weren’t supposed to sail to Alexandria or trade with Egypt at all, and sometimes the church expressly prohibited it when they were preparing for a crusade. But ships from Venice and elsewhere often went to Alexandria anyway. Here are some examples given by John Pryor:

“Travelling in a cog in 1384, three Tuscan pilgrims took 23 days for the voyage from Venice to Alexandria but 42 for the return to Venice from Beirut. On board a Venetian great galley in 1395, Ogier VIII d’Anglure took 32 days to reach Jaffa but over five months for the return to Venice. The galley on which Felix Fabri travelled in 1480 took 43 days to make Jaffa from Venice but 70 for the return voyage.” (Pryor, pg. 51)

He notes that the average trip from Venice to Jaffa took 36.6 days, and 64 days from Jaffa to Venice, so the numbers were probably the same (or very similar) for Alexandria.

Genoa was similar:

“Two spring voyages from Genoa to Alexandria in 1379 and 1391 took 24 days and 35 days respectively, whereas a late autumn voyage from Beirut to Genoa in 1396 took 53 days.” (Pryor, pg. 52)

Crusaders who left from Genoa or Marseilles often noted that it took about five weeks to get to Cyprus or Acre. They would try to include enough food and water for a 50-day journey to the east, and a 100-day trip back, and as we can see from Pryor’s numbers they would have arrived with plenty of supplies left over if everything went well.

Some other examples of well-documented journeys:

- Ibn Jubayr, a Spanish Muslim pilgrim, travelled from Ceuta in Morocco to Alexandria in 30 days, but it took him 50 days to travel from Acre to Messina in Sicily.

- Richard the Lionheart took 30 days to travel from Messina to Cyprus, but at the same time, Philip II of Spain sailed from Messina to Acre in only 22 days.

- Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II travelled from Brindisi to Cyprus in 23 days.

- And for an example of an extreme delay, Louis IX of France took the usual 4-5 weeks to get from Marseilles to Cyprus, but then it took another 23 days for the trip from Cyprus south to Damietta in Egypt.

So, there’s not a lot of specific data for trips to Alexandria, but it was probably the same as other destinations in the east, i.e. 4-5 weeks in good conditions and 7-8 weeks on the way back.

Sources:

John H. Pryor, Geography, Technology, and War Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterranean, 649-1571 (Cambridge University Press, 1988)

Norbert Öhler, The Medieval Traveller, trans. Caroline Hillier (Boydell & Brewer, 2010)