Alexandria, Egypt Travel Guide: The Pearl of the Mediterranean

Alexandria is worth visiting for reasons that have little to do with the pyramids that everyone comes to Egypt expecting. This Mediterranean city was founded by Alexander the Great, ruled by Cleopatra’s dynasty, and later shaped by Greek, Italian and Ottoman communities who left their own layer on top of the old one.

ConnollyCove is an Ireland-based travel and culture platform, and this guide takes the same approach we bring to Belfast or Dublin: cultural depth first, practical logistics second. You will find historic sites, food, coffee culture and the getting-there details in the sections below.

Whether you are basing yourself in Cairo for a day trip or giving Alexandria two full days of its own, this guide sets out what to see, when to go and how the city compares with other layered, seafaring places travellers already know.

Planning Your Trip to Alexandria

Alexandria sits on Egypt’s northern coast, roughly 225 kilometres from Cairo, and most visitors reach it as either a day trip or the first stop on a longer Mediterranean itinerary. Getting the logistics right early makes the rest of the visit far easier.

Getting There from Cairo, London and Dublin

From Cairo, the train is the most comfortable option, taking around two and a half hours with several departures daily from Ramses Station. A private driver covers the same distance in under three hours and suits travellers with luggage or an early flight connection, whilst intercity buses are the cheapest option but take longer.

Travellers flying from the UK or Ireland typically connect through Cairo International Airport, since Alexandria’s own Borg El Arab Airport has fewer direct international routes. From London or Dublin, this usually means a single change in Cairo before continuing north by train or road, and it is worth building in a few hours’ buffer at Cairo airport rather than attempting a tight same-day connection.

Domestic flights between Cairo and Borg El Arab do exist and can save time on a short trip, though for most UK and Irish travellers, the train remains the more reliable and scenic choice, since it follows the Nile Delta for much of the journey.

Best Time to Visit and Sea Conditions

March to May and September to November offer the most comfortable weather, with warm days, cooler evenings and calmer seas along the Corniche. Summer brings the busiest crowds and the hottest temperatures, whilst winter is quieter but can bring wind and rain off the Mediterranean.

For anyone planning to walk the seafront or spend time on the beaches near Montaza, the shoulder seasons make the most of Alexandria’s coastal setting without the summer heat. Winter visitors should pack a warm layer for the evenings, since the sea wind along the Corniche can feel sharper than the daytime temperature suggests.

Currency, Costs and Visa Basics

Egypt uses the Egyptian pound, and UK and Irish travellers will usually need an entry visa, either arranged in advance or, for many nationalities, available on arrival at a Cairo airport. It is worth checking the current requirements with Egypt’s official tourism site before travelling, since visa rules and fees do change.

Alexandria is generally affordable by UK and Irish standards, with entrance fees to most historic sites priced in the low hundreds of Egyptian pounds and food, particularly seafood, offering excellent value for the quality on offer. Card payments are increasingly common in central Alexandria, though carrying some cash is still sensible for markets, taxis and smaller cafes.

Fast Facts for First-Time Visitors

Detail	Information
Best time to visit	March to May, September to November
Currency	Egyptian Pound (EGP)
Language	Arabic, with English widely spoken in tourist areas
Getting there from Cairo	Train (around 2.5 hours) or private car (under 3 hours)
Recommended stay	1 to 2 days

With the logistics settled, it helps to understand why Alexandria looks and feels the way it does today, since the city’s layout still reflects more than two thousand years of overlapping rule. For context on Cairo itself, ConnollyCove’s guide to Cairo covers the capital in more depth if you are combining both cities on one trip.

The Layers of History: From Alexander the Great to the Ottomans

Alexandria’s history explains almost everything a visitor sees today, from its Greek street grid to its Ottoman-era mosques. Understanding these layers turns a walk along the Corniche into something closer to reading a timeline than simply admiring a view.

Founding a Mediterranean Capital

Alexander the Great founded the city in 331 BC, choosing a site on the coast that connected Egypt to the wider Mediterranean world and to Greece itself. The city took his name, and within a century it had grown into one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities of the ancient world, rivalling Rome itself in size and influence.

Before Alexander’s arrival, a smaller settlement called Rhacotis is thought to have occupied part of the site, though little physical evidence of it survives today. The Ptolemaic dynasty that followed Alexander’s death, ending with the reign of Cleopatra VII, made Alexandria the political and intellectual centre of the Hellenistic world for close to three centuries.

The Ptolemaic and Roman Centuries

Alexandria remained the capital of Egypt under the Ptolemies, the Romans and later the Byzantines, a run of continuous prominence lasting close to a thousand years. It only lost its status as capital following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, after which Fustat, and later Cairo, took on that role.

During these centuries, the city was home to one of the ancient world’s great religious mixes, including a large Jewish community, alongside Greek and Egyptian populations who together shaped its early character. Alexandria’s scholarly reputation also drew figures such as the mathematician Euclid and the astronomer Eratosthenes, both associated with the city’s ancient centres of learning.

Lost Cities Beneath the Waves

Parts of ancient Alexandria no longer exist above ground. Areas of the eastern harbour, along with the once-thriving port settlements of Canopus and Heracleion, are now submerged beneath Abu Qir Bay, and underwater archaeology continues to reveal statues, temple remains, and everyday objects from these sunken districts.

The scale of what has been lost here places Alexandria among a small group of ancient cities where entire neighbourhoods survive only through excavation. ConnollyCove’s guide to the world’s seven wonders covers other ancient sites that share this pattern of grandeur followed by disappearance.

Religious Landmarks of a Cosmopolitan City

Alexandria’s long history as a meeting point of cultures shows most clearly in its religious buildings. The 13th-century El-Mursi Abul Abbas Mosque, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, and the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue on Nabi Daniel Street each represent a different community that shaped the city over the centuries.

The Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue, in particular, tells a quieter story, since it was rebuilt in 1850 by Muhammed Ali Pasha after earlier damage, and now serves one of the smallest remaining Jewish communities in Egypt. Nearby, Ali Ibn Abi Talib Mosque and Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque add further depth to a religious landscape that still reflects centuries of coexistence.

The Cultural Heart: Historic Sites Worth Your Time

With the history in mind, Alexandria’s individual sites make far more sense, and a handful stand out as genuinely worth building an itinerary around.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Library’s Legacy

The modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina, opened in 2002, was built as a deliberate homage to the ancient Library of Alexandria, first established in the 3rd century BC under Ptolemy I Soter. The original library’s destruction remains one of history’s most cited losses of accumulated knowledge, and the new building, with its striking circular form and multilingual collection, was designed to answer that loss rather than simply commemorate it.

Ireland has its own story of monks safeguarding knowledge against the odds, most famously through the Book of Kells, and travellers who find the Alexandria story compelling often find a similar pull in that Irish manuscript tradition. Both stories, separated by continents and centuries, come down to the same instinct: protecting the written word against war, fire or neglect.

You can check current exhibitions and opening hours on the Bibliotheca Alexandrina official site before visiting, since the library also hosts a planetarium and several smaller museums worth building into a longer stop.

Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa

Kom El Shoqafa, meaning Mounds of Shards in Arabic, was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. The site consists of three underground levels of tombs, statues and carved reliefs that blend Egyptian religious imagery with Hellenistic and Roman artistic style, though only the upper two levels remain accessible, since the lowest is submerged.

The blending of styles here reflects Alexandria’s role as a genuine crossroads, where Egyptian gods appear carved in distinctly Greek and Roman poses, a visual reminder of just how many traditions once overlapped in this single burial complex.

Pompey’s Pillar and the Citadel of Qaitbay

Pompey’s Pillar, despite its name, has no direct connection to the Roman general Pompey. An inscription discovered on its base dates the column to AD 291, built in honour of Emperor Diocletian, making it the largest Roman triumphal column standing outside Rome itself, and it still stands flanked by a pair of ancient sphinxes on the same site.

The Citadel of Qaitbay, built in 1477 on the site of the ancient Pharos lighthouse, offers a very different atmosphere, with sea views along the Corniche and centuries of use as a coastal defence against successive Mediterranean threats.

Museums Worth a Detour

The Alexandria National Museum, the Graeco-Roman Museum and the Royal Jewellery Museum each cover a different slice of the city’s past, from Ptolemaic artefacts through to the personal collections of Egypt’s royal family. None requires more than an hour or two, which makes them easy to fit around the larger sites.

The Royal Jewellery Museum, housed in a former royal residence in the Zizinia district, is particularly worth the detour for anyone interested in the more recent, 19th and 20th century layer of Alexandria’s history. Temple ruins near the city also connect to Egypt’s wider mythology, and readers curious about the gods referenced across these sites can find more detail in ConnollyCove’s guide to Isis and Osiris.

Beyond the Ruins: Corniche Life, Food and Practical Planning

Alexandria’s ruins explain its past, but its living culture, along the Corniche and through its cafes and markets, is where the city’s present character actually shows itself.

The Corniche and Alexandria’s European Soul

The Corniche stretches along Alexandria’s seafront for miles, lined with 19th and early 20th-century buildings that carry a distinctly European feel, shaped by the city’s large Greek and Italian communities of that era. Walking it at sunset, with faded balconies overhead and the Mediterranean on one side, gives a very different impression of Egypt than the desert landscapes most visitors expect.

Landmarks such as Stanley Bridge and the gardens of Montaza Palace punctuate the seafront and are worth timing around sunset, when the light along the Corniche is at its best for photographs and for simply slowing down.

Alexandria’s identity as a port city, shaped by trade, migration and the sea, has clear parallels in other maritime cities travellers may already know. ConnollyCove’s guide to Belfast’s Titanic Quarter covers a city shaped by very similar forces, industry, migration and a working relationship with the sea.

Coffee Culture and the Attarine Markets

Alexandria’s coffee houses, some dating back over a century, remain central to daily life, with strong Turkish coffee and unhurried conversation still the norm in older establishments near the city centre. The historic Trianon cafe, overlooking Saad Zaghloul Square since the early 20th century, is one of the clearest surviving examples of this Belle Époque cafe culture.

The Attarine district, meanwhile, is known for its antiques and secondhand markets, where genuine period furniture and objects sit alongside more ordinary secondhand goods. Visitors looking for authentic pieces rather than tourist souvenirs tend to find Attarine more rewarding than the shopping areas closer to the main hotels.

A Seafood Lover’s Table

Given its coastal position, Alexandria is widely regarded as Egypt’s best city for seafood, with grilled fish and shrimp sold fresh at markets before being cooked to order at nearby restaurants. Breakfast spots serving foul, falafel and local sandwiches are equally worth seeking out, particularly away from the main tourist strip.

“The first time I ordered fish straight off the ice at one of the seafront markets in Alexandria, the owner walked me through each catch by name before it went on the grill. That kind of direct, unhurried exchange is exactly what we look for when we cover food anywhere on ConnollyCove, whether that is a fish market here or a seafood counter back home in Ireland.” , Ciaran Connolly, Founder of ConnollyCove

One Day vs Two Day Itineraries, Safety and Irish Echoes

A single day in Alexandria suits travellers based in Cairo, and they should prioritise the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Kom El Shoqafa and Qaitbay Citadel, with lunch on the Corniche in between. Two days allow time to add the museums, Attarine and a slower evening along the seafront, which suits anyone treating Alexandria as a destination in its own right rather than a day trip.

Alexandria is generally safe for tourists, including solo travellers, though modest dress is appreciated away from beach areas, and standard city precautions around belongings apply as they would anywhere.

Travellers drawn to Alexandria’s layered, cosmopolitan story, and to its long relationship with the sea, may also enjoy exploring ConnollyCove’s guide to Celtic mythology creatures, since both traditions show how ancient beliefs continue to shape the identity of a place long after the empires that built them have gone.

Conclusion

Alexandria rewards travellers willing to look past the pyramids and spend real time on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. Between its Greco-Roman ruins, its layered religious history and its unhurried cafe culture, the city offers something genuinely different from Cairo. Whether you visit for a single day or build a longer stay around it, Alexandria’s Corniche, catacombs and coffee houses leave a distinct impression of Egypt’s cosmopolitan past.

Planning More of Egypt?
ConnollyCove covers Egypt’s ancient history and living culture in depth, from the Pyramids of Giza to Egyptian mythology. Explore our full Egypt oases guide for more of the country beyond Cairo and Alexandria, or watch our travel videos on ConnollyCove’s YouTube channel for a closer look at the sites covered here.

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