Alexandria City Highlights Full-Day Tour

The day begins indoors, with a strong introduction to the city. The Alexandria National Museum occupies a restored Italianate mansion on Fouad Street, one of the city's grand old avenues, and its collection is arranged roughly by period, from the pharaonic era through the Greek and Roman city to Coptic, Islamic and modern Alexandria.

Your guide uses the galleries as a timeline for the rest of the day. Look for the sculpture and objects recovered from the waters of the Eastern Harbor and Abu Qir Bay, where much of ancient Alexandria now lies underwater, and for the portraits and statues that show how Greek and Egyptian styles blended under the Ptolemies. Seeing them first means the ruins you visit later make more sense.

The museum is compact and well lit, which makes it a gentle start before the outdoor sites. Photography rules can change, so ask your guide before taking pictures inside.

From the museum you drive to Karmouz, in the old southwestern part of the city, where Pompey's Pillar rises from a low rocky hill. The single column of red Aswan granite stands about 27 meters tall, and despite its name it has nothing to do with the Roman general Pompey. An inscription on the base shows it was raised around AD 297 in honor of the emperor Diocletian.

The hill was once crowned by the Serapeum, the great temple of Serapis, the Greco-Egyptian god the Ptolemies promoted to unite their subjects. Around the column you can see two granite sphinxes, temple foundations, and passages cut into the rock beneath. Your guide explains how the temple was destroyed in AD 391 and what that meant for the city.

The site is open to the sky and has very little shade, so this is a good moment for a hat and water.

A few minutes away, the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa take you underground. Cut into the bedrock in the 2nd century AD, this multi-level burial complex is reached by a spiral staircase that winds around a central shaft, down which bodies were once lowered by rope.

The main tomb is the reason people come. Its carved facade mixes Egyptian and classical styles, and the reliefs inside show Egyptian gods such as Anubis dressed in Roman armor, a vivid picture of how the cultures of Roman Alexandria merged. Nearby are a banquet hall where families shared funeral meals and long galleries of burial niches.

The catacombs were rediscovered in 1900, reportedly when a donkey fell through the ground. The air below is cool and slightly damp and the steps can be uneven, and the lowest level is often flooded and closed. Photography rules vary, so check with your guide.

After a break for lunch at a local restaurant of your choice, you cross the city to the tip of the Eastern Harbor. The Citadel of Qaitbay was built in the late 15th century by the Mamluk sultan al-Ashraf Qaitbay on the site of the Pharos, the ancient lighthouse counted among the Seven Wonders of the World.

The lighthouse stood for centuries before earthquakes brought it down, and some of its stone is thought to have been reused in the fortress. Your guide shows you the vaulted halls, the small mosque inside the keep and the ramparts, where the views take in the harbor, the fishing boats, and the long curve of the Corniche.

The sea wind can be strong on the walls, so hold on to hats. The courtyard is a good place to watch the city's families out for the afternoon.

The fifth stop brings the story up to date. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina opened in 2002 near the site of the ancient royal quarter, as a tribute to the great Library of Alexandria that drew scholars from across the Greek world.

The building is designed as a vast tilted disc rising from a pool, like a sun on the horizon. Its outer wall of gray granite is carved with letters and symbols from scripts around the world, and inside, the main reading room descends in terraces beneath a roof of glazed panels. Depending on the library's visitor arrangements on the day, your guide can take you into the reading room and one of the museums in the complex.

The library is usually closed on Fridays and some public holidays. On those days your guide adjusts the program and shows you the exterior and the plaza instead.

The day closes along the water. Your driver follows the Corniche, the seafront road that curves around the bay for many kilometers, past the elegant old apartment blocks, cafés, and fishing jetties that give Alexandria its Mediterranean character.

The route crosses Stanley Bridge, opened in 2001 across the small bay of Stanley, with its tiled-roof towers and views back toward the city center. If the light is good, your driver can stop for photographs where it is safe to pull over. Late afternoon is often the best time, when the low sun turns the water silver and the promenade fills with people.

From here you return to your hotel. If you want to stay out for dinner along the seafront, tell your guide during the day and you can be dropped at a restaurant instead.