Alexandria - Greco-Roman Capital

Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, offers the Kom el-Shoqafa catacombs, Pompey's Pillar, Kom el-Dikka and Qaitbay Citadel. Foreign adult tickets usually cost 100–200 EGP per site, and the train from Cairo takes about 2.5 hours.

Alexander the Great founded Alexandria in 331 BC, and it grew into the intellectual centre of the ancient Mediterranean. It had the famous Library, the Pharos lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders) and the Ptolemaic court, a dynasty that ended with Cleopatra VII. Most of the ancient city now sits beneath the modern one, or under the harbour, where divers find sphinxes and blocks from the palaces. Even so, a good number of Greco-Roman monuments survive above ground.

The most striking are the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa, a three-level tomb complex cut into the rock in the 2nd century AD that mixes Egyptian, Greek and Roman funerary art. Pompey's Pillar, a 27 m Roman column of red granite from around 298 AD, rises over the remains of the Serapeum, the "daughter" of the great Library. At Kom el-Dikka you can see a small Roman amphitheatre, baths, a villa with a bird mosaic and the lecture halls of a late-antique university.

On the seafront, the Mamluk Qaitbay Citadel stands on the foundations of the Pharos itself, with lighthouse stone built into its walls.

What to see

• Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa, multi-level Greco-Egyptian tombs
• Pompey's Pillar and the Serapeum, a Roman triumphal column
• Kom el-Dikka: amphitheatre, baths and villas, also on its own page
• Qaitbay Citadel, on the site of the ancient lighthouse
• Alexandria National Museum, covered on its own page

Visiting

• Best time: spring or autumn; even here the summer is humid
• Tickets: typically 100–200 EGP per site for foreign adults
• Getting there: 2.5 hours by train from Cairo's Ramses station
• Nearby: Graeco-Roman Museum, Royal Jewelry Museum