One of Egypt’s major tourist destinations and holiday spots is Alexandria City. Alexandria is remembered by the Mediterranean Sea bride and has many popular attractions. We will take you on a historical tour of Alexandria’s best top Attractions in Alexandria, Egypt and what you can do during your visit to the city of Alexandria.

Alexandria has a romantic day-to-day environment, more than any other big city in Egypt, that can’t be beaten and that history lovers shouldn’t miss. Plan your travel with our list of Alexandria’s best things to do.

Alexandria National Museum

If you want to get to grips with the vast history of this famous region, Alexandria National Museum is a must-stop. Inside, the set leads you from the Pharaonic age (in the basement), to the Hellenistic heyday, when the Ptolemy dynasty started by Alexander the Great (in the ground floor) ruled Alexandria and Egypt, and up to the Byzantine and Islamic periods (on the 1st floor).

There are excellent map sketches that imagine what the classical city of Alexandria may have looked like, as well as the exhibits, statuary, and antiques uncovered in and around the city (including discoveries from underwater explorations in the offshore area), which really helps visitors understand the changing face of this city.

Fort Qaitbey

Walk west along the long shore-front Corniche path, and you’ll finally get to Fort Qaitbey. It may be a weak replacement for what was once the site of the mighty Pharos Lighthouse, one of the ancient world’s seven wonders, but since 1480, this squat and dinky fort has been standing watch over the eastern harbour of Alexandria.

In an attempt to fortify this important Egyptian port from attack, Fort Qaitbey was constructed by Mamluke Sultan Qaitbey and rubble from the toppled lighthouse was used in its construction. Within, the collection of stone-walled chambers can be explored and climb up to the roof to look out over the Mediterranean.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina

A re-imagining of the ancient Great Library of Alexandria, this beautifully built cultural centre features a host of museums, as well as one of the most ambitious libraries in the modern world. Its architecture presides over the waterfront Corniche, a giant sun disc, while inside, eight million volumes can carry a massive reading space.

Visitors will discover a number of beautifully arranged exhibits beneath the main library. The two prime attractions are the Manuscript Museum, with its magnificent collection of ancient texts and scrolls, and the Museum of Antiquities, with its Greco-Roman antiquities and statuary discovered in the harbour during underwater exploration.

But there are also revolving displays of sculpture, a permanent display of Egyptian folk art, and a science museum and planetarium aimed specifically at children.

Corniche

The broad waterfront road of Downtown Alexandria is as much a symbol of the city as any of its monuments. It’s here that you get a true sense of the age of cosmopolitan sophistication and decadence that characterised this city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Much of the architecture of this era still stands along the Corniche, although much of it is dilapidated and falling into disrepair these days.

Check out the colonial ruins of the Steigenberger Cecil Hotel and Paradise Inn Windsor Palace Hotel during your walk, which are still the main port-side addresses for tourists who want to wallow in the past-day atmosphere. During WWII, the Cecil hosted Winston Churchill and the British Secret Service, and both hotels have sought to restore and maintain much of their original Edwardian charm.

Kom el-Dikka

In central Alexandria, no one thought much of the ancient rubble mound until they agreed in 1947 to clear the site to make way for new homes. Instead, a whole bunch of ancient ruins, including a small Roman theatre, were uncovered in the region known as Kom el-Dikka (‘Mound of Rubble’).

Excavation work began, and today, the ruins of a Ptolemaic temple and the mosaic flooring of a wealthy Roman-era dwelling now known as the Villa of the Birds compose this park area.

Catacombs of Kom el-Shuqqafa

On the southern slopes of a hill, in the Carmous district, the Catacombs of Kom el-Shuqqafa are hewn from rock. They give an admirable example of the characteristic Alexandrian fusion of Egyptian and Greco-Roman types, thought to date from the 2nd century AD. They are laid out on several layers of sarcophagi and local (shelf tomb) chambers, which were discovered in 1900 (thanks to a donkey falling into them).

A spiral staircase leads to the main rotunda down into the field. You will enter the main burial chamber on the right and also the 91-loculi Sepulchral Chapel, each wide enough to hold three or four mummies. To the left is a wide space known as the Funebre Triclinium, which would have been used in remembrance of the deceased for banquets.

Pompey’s Pillar

There is a hill in Carmous (in the southwest of the town) riddled with the remains of ancient walls, architectural fragments, and rubble on which the only ancient monument of Alexandria is left standing. The Pillar of Pompey rises from the ruins of the ancient and famous Serapis Temple, which was once used to store the overflow of manuscripts from the Alexandrian Great Library.

In fact, this column of red Aswan granite with a Corinthian capital, standing on a badly damaged substructure and rising to a height of nearly 27 metres, has little to do with Pompey and was instead set up in 292 AD in honour of Diocletian, who, after the siege of the city, provided food for the starving people.

Montazah Gardens

Montazah, an oasis of peace on the eastern edge of the capital, is a lush paradise of tall palm trees, clipped lawns, and flowering flowers that were once off limits to everyone but the royal court and its hangers. Founded by Khedive Abbas Hilmi as a hunting lodge in the 1890s, King Fuad later enlarged it significantly and replaced Ras el-Tin Palace as the summer house of the royal family.

With its ornate Florentine-inspired towers and Rococo flourishes, the eccentrically built Montazah Palace is not open to the public, but everyone is welcome to walk through the sprawling gardens, which can be a welcome slice of nature after a day spent in the hustle of Alexandria. A small beach with a peculiarly whimsical bridge to a small island is on the coastal end of the park.

A ride to Montazah is just the ticket to regain your sanity before jumping back into the inner city fray if you need a dose of tranquilly. Minibuses going west up Corniche’s shore-front road all pass by Montazah .

Diving in Alexandria

The big activity in Alexandria is diving. You’re not here for the dazzling coral reefs, unlike Egypt’s other diving centres. Instead, Alexandria’s diving in the eastern harbour area is all about ancient ruins underwater. This is a rare chance for divers to see the fallen sculptures and columns strewn around the bed of the sea.

STANLEY BRIDGE

Offering great panoramic views of the Mediterranean, this bridge is an even more unique place to visit at night. The bridge has a length of 400 metres in total. There are several hotels and restaurants in the surrounding area. This is a good place to come and enjoy the sea breeze or have a fun walk around at one of the restaurants in the area before or after dining.