Things to do in Alexandria

Culture · Chatby, on the Corniche

A vast disc of a library tilted towards the sea on the site of the ancient one, with reading halls, museums, an antiquities collection and a planetarium.

Local tip: The main reading room is the thing to see and you need a ticket to enter it, so go inside rather than photographing the granite wall from the road. The temporary exhibitions are consistently better than the permanent ones.

Landmark · Tip of the eastern harbour, Bahari

A 15th-century fortress standing on the foundations of the Pharos lighthouse, at the very end of the harbour breakwater.

Local tip: Walk out along the harbour arm at sunset rather than driving to the gate. The best view of the citadel is from the corniche looking back, and the fish restaurants in Bahari behind it are where you should eat afterwards.

Landmark · Karmouz

A three-level Roman burial complex cut into rock, where Egyptian, Greek and Roman funerary art collide in the same chambers.

Local tip: Genuinely strange and often nearly empty. The mixed iconography — Anubis in a Roman legionary's armour — is the point, and it is the clearest surviving evidence of what this city actually was.

Nature · The full length of the seafront

A continuous seafront road and promenade running the length of the city, with the Stanley Bridge arching over a bay of tiered bathing cabins.

Local tip: Walk a stretch of it in the early evening, which is when the city is out. In winter, come and watch a nawwa storm break over the sea wall from a safe distance — it is the most Alexandrian thing you can do.

Food · Bahari, by the western harbour

The working fish market where the boats land, and the restaurants around it where you choose from ice and have it grilled.

Local tip: Buy the fish yourself at the market and take it to one of the neighbouring kitchens to cook — that is the local way, it costs a fraction of ordering off a menu, and you get the better fish.

Nature · Eastern end of the Corniche

A royal palace and a large wooded park on a headland at the far eastern edge of the city, with its own beaches and a Florentine-style tower.

Local tip: The eastern end of the city is where Alexandrians go to escape it. Come on a weekday morning, walk the pine groves down to the water, and you will have the place almost to yourself.