Alexandria (الإسكندرية — Al-Iskandariyya, population 5.2 million) is Egypt's second city and Mediterranean port, founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC as the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt. In the ancient world it was the most important city in the Mediterranean — the site of the Lighthouse of Alexandria (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, 135m tall), the Library of Alexandria (the greatest library ever assembled, holding the intellectual inheritance of the Hellenistic world — lost to fire and neglect between 48 BC and 640 AD), and the Mouseion (the first research institution in history, precursor to the modern university). Alexandria retains a distinctly Mediterranean character different from Cairo: the Corniche (the 20km seafront promenade along the Mediterranean), the French and Italian-inspired architecture of the belle époque, the fish and seafood culture of the Mediterranean, and the literary legacy of the Greek-Alexandrian poet Constantine Cavafy and Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet.
Bibliotheca Alexandrina (the modern library opened 2002 — designed by the Norwegian firm Snøhetta as a tilted disc of granite rising from a pool: the 11-story library with a capacity of 8 million books (the ancient library held an estimated 400,000–700,000 scrolls at its peak), the Antiquities Museum (the objects from the archaeological excavations of the library site), the Manuscript Museum (the digitized Islamic manuscripts), and the Planetarium. Built on the approximate site of the ancient Library and Mouseion. The library exterior: the circular disc roof faces the sea at an angle mimicking a sun disc, the surrounding wall carved with letters from every writing system that has ever existed.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideFish Market Restaurant (26 July St, the bay — the most famous seafood restaurant in Alexandria: the format (choose your raw fish or seafood from the ice display at the entrance, weigh it, pay by weight, have it prepared to your specification (grilled, fried, baked in salt or in tomato sauce), then served with Egyptian bread (aish baladi — the thick, wholemeal Egyptian flatbread), tahini and the specific Alexandrian fish salads (the baba ghannoug (the roasted aubergine paste), the salata baladi (the Egyptian tomato and cucumber salad) and the spiced fried calamari as starters). The freshest fish in Egypt — the catch arrives daily from the Alexandrian fishing boats at the eastern harbor.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Corniche (the 20km Mediterranean seafront promenade of Alexandria — the most distinctive feature of the city: the wide coastal road flanked by the blue Mediterranean on one side and the belle époque apartment buildings (the faded, salt-eroded French and Italian neoclassical facades of 19th-century Alexandria) on the other). The Eastern Harbor (where the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos — the 135m lighthouse built between 280 and 247 BC by Ptolemy I and II on the island of Pharos, connected to the city by a causeway — the word "pharos" entered Greek, Latin and French (phare) as the common word for "lighthouse"): the lighthouse collapsed in a series of earthquakes from 956 to 1323 AD and the Citadel of Qaitbay was built on its foundation in 1480 using the Lighthouse stones.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Cavafy Museum (4 Sharm El-Sheikh St, the old Greek quarter — the apartment where Constantine Cavafy (Κωνσταντίνος Καβάφης, 1863–1933 — the most important Greek-language poet of the 20th century, who spent virtually his entire life in Alexandria and whose poems ("Ithaka," "The City," "Waiting for the Barbarians") define the Alexandrian sensibility of exile, memory and the Mediterranean world) lived and wrote from 1907 until his death in 1933. The room is preserved with his writing desk, his books and his typewriter. Forster's and Durrell's Alexandria Quartet are set in the streets around this apartment.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa (one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages — the 2nd-century AD funerary complex carved in the soft limestone rock at 30m depth: the most important example of the syncretic Alexandrian style that blended Egyptian, Greek and Roman imagery in a single artistic program. The triclinium (the banqueting hall where the funeral feast was held), the rotunda (the circular room with niches), and the principal tomb chamber (where the three sarcophagi are carved with Egyptian-style figures wearing Roman dress but displaying the Egyptian canonical posture — one of the most remarkable cultural blends in ancient art). The Hall of Caracalla (the adjacent burial site of horses and humans massacred by the Emperor Caracalla during his visit to Alexandria in 215 AD).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePompey's Pillar (the 27m red Aswan granite column, 2.7m in diameter, erected in 297 AD by the prefect Publius to honor Emperor Diocletian — the largest ancient column outside Rome and the largest ancient monument still standing in Egypt outside Luxor and Giza: its name is a Crusader-era error (the column has nothing to do with Pompey, who was assassinated in Alexandria in 48 BC). The column stands on the remains of the Serapeum (the Temple of Serapis — the deity combining Zeus and Osiris created by the Ptolemies to bridge the Greek and Egyptian religions): the Serapeum housed a daughter library of the Library of Alexandria (the branch library that survived longer than the main library).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Greco-Roman Museum of Alexandria (Mohammed Ahmed Aly El-Rafi Street — the collection of 40,000+ objects from the Hellenistic and Roman periods of Alexandria (the period from Alexander's conquest (332 BC) to the Arab conquest (641 AD)): the most important collection of Ptolemaic-period artifacts in the world. Closed for restoration since 2005, the museum was due to reopen in 2024–2025 after a complete renovation (verify current status). The collection: the Serapis cult objects, the Alexandrian terracotta figurines, the Roman-era mummy portraits (the Fayum portraits — the most realistic ancient portrait tradition, painted on wooden panels while the subject was alive), the coins of the Ptolemaic dynasty and the Roman emperor portraits.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideKoshary (the Egyptian national dish — the comfort food that is uniquely Egyptian: a bowl of three cooked starches (rice, macaroni and small round lentils) topped with the spiced tomato sauce, the crispy fried onions and the garlic-vinegar dressing (dakka: the sharp garlic-lemon-cumin sauce). Koshary is the only national dish invented by pure pragmatic poverty (each ingredient is cheap and nutritious; together they are greater than the parts). Available at Koshary El Tahrir (the most famous koshary restaurant chain in Alexandria) for EGP 25–40.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideCitadel of Qaitbay (the fortress on the tip of the peninsula at the entrance of the Eastern Harbor, built 1477–1480 by Sultan Qaitbay on the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria — using the fallen stones of the ancient wonder in the construction (the granite blocks from the Lighthouse are visible in the lower walls)). The view from the citadel battlements is the finest in Alexandria: the Eastern Harbor to the east, the Western Harbor to the west, and the Mediterranean to the north. The small mosque inside the citadel (built over the original lighthouse base) is a significant Islamic monument.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideRoyal Jewelry Museum (27 Ahmed Yehia Pasha St, Gleem — housed in the former palace of Princess Fatima al-Zahraa (daughter of King Fuad I): the personal jewelry, crowns, necklaces and decorative objects of the Egyptian royal family from Mohammed Ali (the founder of the dynasty, 1769–1849) to King Farouk (the last king, deposed 1952). The building itself is as remarkable as the collection: the Art Nouveau and Islamic architecture of the 1920s palace, the painted ceilings and the stained glass windows. The most lavish display of royal Egyptian jewelry in existence (the Cairo Museum holds the ancient Pharaonic jewelry — this holds the Islamic-era royal collection).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideCafé Athineos (the Corniche — the most atmospheric historic café in Alexandria: established in the 1930s by a Greek merchant family during the belle époque of Alexandria (when the city was 35% non-Egyptian (Greek, Italian, French, Jewish, Maltese — the cosmopolitan community that Cavafy and Durrell wrote about)), the café retains its original 1930s interior (the marble counter, the mosaic floor, the Art Deco fittings) and serves the specifically Alexandrian afternoon ritual of mint tea (shai binnana — the tea with fresh mint and sugar), the Egyptian pastries (basbousa — the semolina cake soaked in sugar syrup, more orange-flower water than honey, lighter than the Turkish version) and the street view of the Corniche and the Mediterranean.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Alexandrian seafood farewell: the grilled samak (fresh fish) at one of the seafront restaurants on the Corniche, with the Mediterranean sunset over the Western Harbor and the smell of salt water and grilling fish that defines Alexandria as a port city more than any other single sensory experience. The Mohammed Ahmed restaurant (the most famous foul (fava bean) and ta'ameya (Egyptian falafel) restaurant in Alexandria — for a different farewell) or the Corniche fish grills for the seafood option.
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