The Best Places to Visit in Alexandria

The Corniche walk

The Corniche is the single long road and sea-wall that traces the great curve of Alexandria's Eastern Harbour, and walking a stretch of it is the truest way to understand the city. It is not a manicured promenade — it is a working seafront, with traffic on one side and the Mediterranean breaking against the wall on the other, and that is exactly why it feels alive rather than staged.

The stretch we send people to first is the eastern sweep, from the Bibliotheca area curving round toward Qaitbay, where the road holds the full bend of the harbour and the fort sits at the far point like a full stop. Walk it in the late afternoon into the golden hour: the heat has come off the day, the light goes soft and low across the water, the fishermen are out along the wall, and the whole curve of the city lights up around the bay. The flat middle of the day is the hour to skip — the glare off the sea is hard and the pavement is hot.

What you actually do here is walk slowly and stop often. Sit on the sea-wall with a tea or a fresh juice, watch the boys casting lines, feel the wind that never quite leaves this city. This is the sea-wall culture that Alexandrians themselves live by — the corniche in the evening is where the city comes down to the water, families out, vendors, the light going copper off the harbour — and an hour of it, unplanned, is one of the best things Alexandria gives you.

Qaitbay Citadel and the eastern harbour

At the far tip of the Eastern Harbour stands the Citadel of Qaitbay, a squat, pale fifteenth-century fort on the exact spot where the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria — the Pharos, one of the Seven Wonders — once stood. Some of the old lighthouse's fallen stone is believed to be built into the fort itself, so you are standing on layered history: a medieval fortress raised on the footprint of the ancient world's most famous tower, both of them guarding the same harbour mouth.

Go for the setting as much as the walls. The fort juts out on its own spit of land with the open Mediterranean on one side and the whole curve of the harbour and city skyline on the other, and the view back across the bay from out here is the postcard of Alexandria — the one most visitors picture before they arrive. Late afternoon light is kindest to the pale stone, and the breeze off the sea is a mercy in summer.

The approach is half the pleasure. The road out to the fort runs past the fishing harbour, where the small painted boats are pulled up and the nets are spread, and the men are mending gear or bringing in the catch. This is the working, unglamorous, entirely real Alexandria — and it sits right beside the city's most famous monument. Give yourself time to linger at the harbour before or after the fort rather than driving straight past it.

Montaza — the palace gardens

At the far eastern end of the city, well past the busy centre, sit the Montaza gardens: a large royal park of pines and palms and lawns running down to its own quiet beaches and coves, with the old palace standing above it all. After the noise and the traffic of the Corniche, Montaza is where Alexandria exhales — shaded paths, sea air, and space to simply be, which the dense centre never quite offers.

This is why families linger here rather than tick it off. Children have room to run, there is grass and shade in a city short on both, the coves are gentle, and you can spend a whole slow morning or a late afternoon without any plan at all. We tell guests travelling with children that if they only add one thing to the classic Corniche-and-Qaitbay day, make it Montaza — it is the antidote to a day of monuments, and it is the part the kids remember.

Go for the grounds and the walk down to the water, not for the palace interior, which is not the point. The pleasure is the setting: the pines, the bridge to the little island, the coves opening onto the Mediterranean, and the sense of a green, salt-aired lung at the edge of a hard-working city. Morning or the cool of late afternoon are the hours; the middle of a summer day is best spent in the shade of the pines rather than out on the open lawns.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina

The modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina is the city's signal building — a vast disc of grey granite tilted toward the sea like a second sun rising out of the harbour, raised near the site of the fabled ancient library that made Alexandria the mind of the classical world. It is the rare modern landmark that earns its ambition, and it sits right on the Corniche, so it folds naturally into a seafront day.

Step inside for the main reading room, which is the reason to go: a single cascading hall stepping down across several levels beneath a slanted glass roof, one of the largest reading rooms in the world, and the scale of it stops people in the doorway. Whether or not you open a book, standing in that light-filled, terraced space is a genuine architectural experience — the calm inverse of the crowded seafront just outside.

Then come out to the plaza. The building's forecourt opens toward the Mediterranean, the granite skin inscribed with characters and alphabets from across human history, and from here the sea and the sweep of the Corniche are right in front of you. It is a natural anchor for the day — most of the Corniche walk and the run out to Qaitbay begin or end within sight of it.

The fish-lunch culture

You cannot understand Alexandria without eating its fish, and the way the city does it is a small ritual worth knowing before you sit down. The classic Alexandrian seafood spot works market-style: the day's catch is laid out on ice at the front — fish, prawns, calamari, whatever came in — and you go and pick what you want by eye and by weight. They then grill it, fry it, or bake it in a salt crust and bring it to your table with bread, salads, tahina and rice. You are choosing the actual fish that becomes your lunch, and that is the whole charm of it.

The heart of this is Bahari, the old fishermen's quarter out toward Qaitbay, where the harbour, the boats and the fish tables are all part of one neighbourhood — the catch comes off the boats and onto the ice a short walk away. It is unpretentious, loud, and completely authentic, and it is the flavour of Alexandria that stays with people longest. We do not steer guests to a particular table — half the pleasure is that any busy, well-run place with a fresh display and a local crowd will do you proud.

A word on how to do it: go where the locals go and where the display looks fresh and the room is full, order simply and grilled rather than over-sauced, and lean into it as the leisurely midday-into-afternoon affair it is meant to be. A proper Alexandrian fish lunch is not a quick refuel between sights — for a lot of visitors it turns out to be one of the sights.

The North Coast, in season

West of the city, the coastline runs on for well over a hundred kilometres of white sand and turquoise water — the Sahel, the North Coast, Egypt's summer shore. Sidi Abdel Rahman and the resort town of Marina are the landmarks along it, and in July and August this strip is where much of Egypt decamps for the sea, the water here clearer and the sand finer than the city's own harbour beaches.

The honest thing to say is that this is a summer rhythm and only a summer rhythm. The North Coast comes alive from roughly late spring through the end of summer and then goes quiet — many of the compounds effectively close for the year, so a winter visitor picturing a lively beach strip will find shuttered gates and empty roads. If the coast is the point of your trip, come in season; outside it, keep to the city itself, which is alive all year round.

It is also a real drive, not a stroll from Alexandria — the coast unspools westward and the good beaches are a proper run out of the city. Fold it in as its own outing rather than an afternoon add-on: a day at Sidi Abdel Rahman or a stay at Marina is a summer expedition in its own right, and it deserves to be planned as one rather than squeezed onto the end of a Corniche day.

Getting there, chauffeured

A practical truth sits under all of this. Most people who visit Alexandria are based in Cairo, and the run up is a straightforward road journey of about two and a half hours — for a family with luggage, very often the better answer than a domestic flight once you count the airport time at both ends. It is the drive that turns Alexandria from an idea into a day.

And Alexandria itself is a corniche city: the sights string out along one long, busy seafront, far enough apart that walking the lot is a slog and close enough that a car covers them comfortably in a day. That is precisely the shape of day a waiting driver suits — the Bibliotheca, then west to Qaitbay and the fish tables of Bahari, out to Montaza, back as the light goes off the sea — without hunting for a ride at each stop or a parking space along a packed corniche. We drive these exact routes every day, which is where this guide comes from; if you would like the same day chauffeured, that is what we are here for. But the timing above is the real gift — get the hours and the light right, and Alexandria gives you its best however you travel.

Getting there, chauffeured

Frequently asked questions