Alexandria, Egypt: What Is Left of the Ancient City

Is Alexandria, Egypt, worth visiting?

It depends on what you came to Egypt for. If you have seven days and you have not seen Luxor or Aswan, go there first — the pharaonic sites are stronger, and Alexandria will still be here. If you have ten days or more, or you have done the Nile before, the city earns a night or two. It is a change of register: sea air, Greek and Roman history instead of pharaonic, and a normal Egyptian city getting on with its day rather than a tourist strip.

Be clear about what it is not. It is not a beach holiday. The city beaches are narrow, busy and hemmed in by the Corniche traffic, and the sea is not the reason to come. Nor is it a place where you walk among ancient ruins. Most of the ancient stone is under the modern streets or under the harbour.

What happened to the Library of Alexandria?

The Library of Alexandria was not burned down in one night. It declined over centuries: fire during Caesar's siege in 48 BC, the loss of royal funding, the slow drift of scholars elsewhere, and the general unravelling of the city under Roman rule. By late antiquity it had stopped functioning. No one can point to a single villain, and no one can point to the building either. Nothing of it survives, and its exact site is not known.

What you can visit is the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, opened in 2002 on the Corniche at Shatby, near where the ancient royal quarter stood. It is a working library and cultural centre, not a reconstruction. The reading room is the point: a huge tilted disc of a building, stepped floors, light coming in through the angled roof. There are small museums inside, including antiquities and manuscripts. An hour is enough unless you like libraries, in which case take two.

What is actually left to see?

Qaitbay Citadel sits at the western tip of the eastern harbour, on the site of the Pharos lighthouse. The fort was built in the 1470s for Sultan Qaitbay, and stone from the collapsed lighthouse was reused in it. Inside it is fairly bare; the reason to go is the position and the view back along the Corniche. Pompey's Pillar, inland, has nothing to do with Pompey — it was raised for the emperor Diocletian around AD 298, and takes twenty minutes.

The catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa are the strongest single site. A spiral staircase drops you into a second-century AD tomb complex where Egyptian, Greek and Roman carving share the same walls, including Anubis in a Roman soldier's uniform. The lowest level is usually flooded. Nearby, Kom el-Dikka has a small Roman theatre and bath house. The Graeco-Roman Museum, reopened in 2023 after a long closure, holds the best of what has been dug out of the city.

The rest is atmosphere rather than monuments: the curve of the Corniche at dusk, the old Greek and Italian cafés downtown, the fish laid out on ice at Anfoushi, the poet Cavafy's flat kept as a small museum. Some people find that thin. Others find it the best day of their trip.

How do you get there from Cairo?

Alexandria is roughly 220 km from Cairo. The fast trains take about two and a half hours and are the civilised option. By road it is about three hours each way, longer if Cairo traffic is having a bad morning. Day trips are sold and they work, but you leave before dawn, see three sites at speed and get back after dark. It is a long day for what it is.

One night is the sensible minimum, two if you want an evening on the Corniche and a slow morning downtown. We usually place Alexandria at the start or end of a trip, either side of the international flights into Cairo, rather than squeezing it between Nile days.

When is the best time to go?

This city runs on a different calendar from the rest of Egypt. Summer here is around 30C rather than the 40C of Luxor, so July and August are the busy months and the seafront fills with Egyptian holidaymakers. Winter is mild but genuinely wet by Egyptian standards: Alexandria gets more rain than almost anywhere else in the country, roughly 200 mm a year, and a grey, blustery week in January is normal. Spring and autumn are the reliable choice — warm, dry enough, and the sites are quiet.

What is the city like to walk around?

This is a working city of several million people, not a resort, and it behaves like one. The downtown grid is walkable and the Corniche is a long, flat walk, but crossing the Corniche road takes nerve. Traffic is heavy, pavements are uneven, and taxis are cheap and easy. Hassle is lighter than in Luxor or at the pyramids, because far fewer visitors come.

Dress is more conservative than you might expect on a Mediterranean seafront. Local women swim clothed, and a swimsuit on a city beach will draw attention. Away from the water, ordinary travel clothes are fine. English is widely understood downtown and less so in the western districts.