Alexandria travel guide — Alexandria tourism and travel information

Alexandria travel guide

about Alexandria

We know the names of a few other public buildings on the mainland, but nothing as to their position.

On the eastern point of the Pharos island stood the Great Lighthouse, one of the "Seven Wonders," reputed to be 122 meters (400 feet) high. The first Ptolemy began it, and the second completed it, at a total cost of 800 talents. It took 12 years to construct. It is the prototype of all lighthouses in the world. The light was produced by a furnace at the top. It was built mostly with solid blocks of limestone. The Pharos lighthouse was destroyed by an earthquake.

A temple of Hephaestus also stood on Pharos at the head of the mole. In the Augustan age the population of Alexandria was estimated at 300,000 free folk, in addition to an immense number of slaves.

The modern city

The city is built on the strip of land which separates the Mediterranean from Lake Mareotis (Mariout), and on a T-shaped peninsula which forms harbors east and west. The stem of the T was originally a mole (breakwater) leading to the island of Pharos which formed the cross-piece. In the course of centuries this mole has been silted up and is now an isthmus half a mile wide. On it a part of the modern city is built. The cape at the western end of the peninsula is Ras et-Tin (Cape of Figs); the eastern cape is known as Pharos or Kait Bey. South of the town – between it and Lake Mareotis – runs the Mahmudiya canal, which enters the western harbour by a series of locks.

The Place Mehemet Ali, usually called the Grand Square, is an oblong open space, tree-lined, in the center of which there is an equestrian statue of the ruler after whom it is named. The square is faced with handsome buildings mainly in the Italian style. The most important are the law courts, exchange, Ottoman bank, English church and the Abbas Hilmi theatre.

On the Ras et-Tin promontory, overlooking the harbour, is the khedivial yacht club (built 1903) and the palace, also called Ras et-Tin, built by Mehemet Ali. In the district between the Grand Square and the western harbour, one of the poorest quarters of the city, is an open space with Fort Caffareli or Napoleon in the center.

A major new library and cultural complex, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, was recently built with the help of the United Nations. The original library contained authentic books from the time of Cleopatra but they were later burned when the library was destroyed.

The predominant languages spoken, besides the Arabic of the natives, are Greek, French, English and Italian.

Alexandria is served by a network of trams traveling east and west roughly parallel to the Corniche, or sea wall.

Alexandria geography

Layout of the ancient city

The Greek Alexandria was divided into three regions:

In Roman times Brucheum was enlarged by the addition of an official quarter, making up four regions in all. The city was laid out as a grid of parallel streets, each of which had an attendant subterranean canal.

Two main streets, lined with colonnades and said to have been each about 60 meters (200 feet) wide, intersected in the centre of the city, close to the point where rose the Sema (or Soma) of Alexander (i.e. his Mausoleum). This point is very near the present mosque of Nebi Daniel; and the line of the great east-west "Canopic" street only slightly diverged from that of the modern Boulevard de Rosette. Traces of its pavement and canal have been found near the Rosetta Gate, but better remains of streets and canals were exposed in 1899 by German excavators outside the east fortifications, which lie well within the area of the ancient city.

Alexandria consisted originally of little more than the island of Pharos, which was joined to the mainland by a mole nearly a mile long and called the Heptastadion ("seven stadia" – a stadium was a Roman unit measuring somewhat more than 200m). The end of this abutted on the land at the head of the present Grand Square, where rose the "Moon Gate." All that now lies between that point and the modern Ras et-Tin quarter is built on the silt which gradually widened and obliterated this mole. The Ras et-Tin quarter represents all that is left of the island of Pharos, the site of the actual lighthouse having been weathered away by the sea. On the east of the mole was the Great Harbour, now an open bay; on the west lay the port of Eunostos, with its inner basin Kibotos, now vastly enlarged to form the modern harbour.

In Strabo's time, (latter half of 1st century BC) the principal buildings were as follows, enumerated as they were to be seen from a ship entering the Great Harbour.

We know the names of a few other public buildings on the mainland, but nothing as to their position.

On the eastern point of the Pharos island stood the Great Lighthouse, one of the "Seven Wonders," reputed to be 122 meters (400 feet) high. The first Ptolemy began it, and the second completed it, at a total cost of 800 talents. It took 12 years to construct. It is the prototype of all lighthouses in the world. The light was produced by a furnace at the top. It was built mostly with solid blocks of limestone. The Pharos lighthouse was destroyed by an earthquake.

A temple of Hephaestus also stood on Pharos at the head of the mole. In the Augustan age the population of Alexandria was estimated at 300,000 free folk, in addition to an immense number of slaves.

The modern city

The city is built on the strip of land which separates the Mediterranean from Lake Mareotis (Mariout), and on a T-shaped peninsula which forms harbors east and west. The stem of the T was originally a mole (breakwater) leading to the island of Pharos which formed the cross-piece. In the course of centuries this mole has been silted up and is now an isthmus half a mile wide. On it a part of the modern city is built. The cape at the western end of the peninsula is Ras et-Tin (Cape of Figs); the eastern cape is known as Pharos or Kait Bey. South of the town – between it and Lake Mareotis – runs the Mahmudiya canal, which enters the western harbour by a series of locks.

The Place Mehemet Ali, usually called the Grand Square, is an oblong open space, tree-lined, in the center of which there is an equestrian statue of the ruler after whom it is named. The square is faced with handsome buildings mainly in the Italian style. The most important are the law courts, exchange, Ottoman bank, English church and the Abbas Hilmi theatre.

On the Ras et-Tin promontory, overlooking the harbour, is the khedivial yacht club (built 1903) and the palace, also called Ras et-Tin, built by Mehemet Ali. In the district between the Grand Square and the western harbour, one of the poorest quarters of the city, is an open space with Fort Caffareli or Napoleon in the center.

A major new library and cultural complex, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, was recently built with the help of the United Nations. The original library contained authentic books from the time of Cleopatra but they were later burned when the library was destroyed.

The predominant languages spoken, besides the Arabic of the natives, are Greek, French, English and Italian.

Alexandria is served by a network of trams traveling east and west roughly parallel to the Corniche, or sea wall.

Alexandria history

The history of Alexandria covers four periods:

Foundation

Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in 334 BCE (the exact date is disputed). Alexander's chief architect for the project was Deinocrates of Rhodes. Ancient accounts are extremely numerous and varied, and much influenced by subsequent developments. One of the more sober descriptions, given by the historian Arrian, tells how Alexander undertook to lay out the city's general plan, but lacking chalk or other means, resorted to sketching it out with grain. Alexander's and Roman world.

A number of the more fantastic foundation myths are found in the Alexander Romance, and were picked up by Medieval Arab historians. The 14th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun ridiculed one where sea-monsters prevent the foundation, but are thwarted when Alexander descends in a glass box, and armed with exact knowledge of their appearance, erects metal efigies on the beach which succeed in frightening the monsters away.

Alexandria was intended to supersede Naucratis as a Greek centre in Egypt, and to be the link between Macedonia and the rich Nile Valley. If such a city was to be on the Egyptian coast, there was only one possible site, behind the screen of the Pharos island and removed from the silt thrown out by Nile mouths. An Egyptian townlet, Rhacotis, already stood on the shore and was a resort of fishermen and pirates. Behind it there were five native villages scattered along the strip between Lake Mareotis and the sea, according to a history of Alexander attributed to the author known as pseudo-Callisthenes.

A few months after the foundation, Alexander left Egypt for the East and never returned to his city. His general, Ptolemy (later Ptolemy I of Egypt) suceeded in bringing Alexander's body to Alexandria, where it became a famous tourist destination for ancient travellers.

After Alexander departed, his viceroy, Cleomenes, continued the creation of Alexandria. The Heptastadion, however, and the mainland quarters and becoming the centre of the new commerce between Europe and the Arabian and Indian East, the city grew in less than a century to be larger than Carthage; and for some centuries more it was second only to Rome. Nominally a free Greek city, Alexandria retained its senate to Roman times; and indeed the judicial functions of that body were restored by Septimius Severus, after temporary abolition by Augustus.

It was not only a center of Hellenism, but was also the greatest Jewish city in the world. There the Septuagint was produced. The early Ptolemies kept it in order and fostered the development of its museum into the leading Greek university but they were careful to maintain the distinction of its population into three nations, "Macedonian" (i.e. Greek), Jew and Egyptian. One of the earliest inhabitants was the geometer and number-theorist Euclid. From this division arose much of the later turbulence which began to manifest itself under Ptolemy Philopater, who reigned 221–204 BC.

In ancient times, Alexandria was known for its lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the World) and its library (the largest in the world). Ongoing maritime archaeology in the harbor of Alexandria, begun in 1994, is revealing details of the Alexandria of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Roman jurisdiction

The city passed formally under Roman jurisdiction in 80 BC, according to the will of Ptolemy Alexander: but it had been under Roman influence for more than a hundred years previously. Julius Caesar dallied with Cleopatra in Alexandria in 47 BC and was mobbed by the rabble; his example was followed by Marc Antony, for whose favor the city paid dear to Octavian, who placed over it a prefect from the imperial household.

Alexandria In AD 215 the emperor Caracalla visited the city; and, in order to repay some insulting satires that the inhabitants had made upon him, he commanded his troops to put to death all youths capable of bearing arms. This brutal order seems to have been carried out even beyond the letter, for a general massacre was the result.

Even as its main historical importance had formerly sprung from pagan learning, so now it acquired fresh importance as a centre of Christian theology and church government. There Arianism was formulated and there Athanasius, the great opponent of both Arianism and pagan reaction, triumphed over both, establishing the Patriarch of Alexandria as a major influence over Christianity for the next two centuries .

As native influences, however, began to reassert themselves in the Nile valley, Alexandria gradually became an alien city, more and more detached from Egypt; and, losing much of its commerce as the peace of the empire broke up during the 3rd century AD, it declined fast in population and splendour. The Brucheum and Jewish quarters were desolate in the 5th century, and the central monuments, the Soma and Museum, fallen to ruin. On the mainland, life seems to have centred in the vicinity of the Serapeum and Caesareum; both become Christian churches. The Pharos and Heptastadium quarters remained populous and intact.

In 616 it was taken by Khosrau II, king of Persia; and in 640 by the Arabians, under the general Amr ibn al-As, after a siege that lasted fourteen months. The city received no aid from Constantinople during that time; Byzantine Emperor Heraclius was dead and the new Emperor Constantine III was barely twelve years old. Notwithstanding the losses that the city had sustained, Amr was able to write to his master, the caliph Omar, that he had taken a city containing "4,000 palaces, 4,000 baths, 12,000 dealers in fresh oil, 12,000 gardeners, 40,000 Jews who pay tribute, 400 theatres or places of amusement."

The Library of Alexandria was destroyed about this time.

After Amr

Shortly after its capture, Alexandria again fell into the hands of the Greeks, who took advantage of Amr's absence with the greater portion of his army. On hearing what had happened, however, Amr returned, and quickly regained possession of the city. About the year 646, Amr was deprived of his government by the caliph Uthman ibn Affan . Amr was greatly beloved by the Egyptians; they threatened such a revolt over this that the Greek emperor was determined to reduce Alexandria.

The attempt proved successful. The caliph, perceiving his mistake, immediately restored Amr, who, on his arrival in Egypt, drove the Greeks within the walls of Alexandria, but was only able to capture the city after a most obstinate resistance by the defenders. This so exasperated him that he completely demolished its fortifications, although he seems to have spared the lives of the inhabitants as far as lay in his power.

Alexandria now rapidly declined in importance. The building of Cairo in 969, and, above all, the discovery of the route to the East by the Cape of Good Hope in 1498, nearly ruined its commerce; the canal, which supplied it with Nile water, became blocked; and although it remained a principal Egyptian port, at which most European visitors in the Mameluke and Ottoman periods landed, we hear little of it until about the beginning of the 19th century.

Alexandria figured prominently in the military operations of Napoleon's Egyptian expedition of 1798. The French troops stormed the city on July 2, 1798, and it remained in their hands until the arrival of the British expedition of 1801. The battle of Alexandria, fought on March 21 that year between the French and the British, took place near the ruins of Nicopolis, on the narrow spit of land between the sea and Lake Abukir.

During the anarchy which accompanied Ottoman rule in Egypt from first to last, Alexandria sank to a small town of about 4,000 inhabitants, and it owed its modern rennaissance solely to Mehemet Ali, who wanted a deep port and naval station for his viceregal domain. He restored its water communication with the Nile by making the Mahmudiya canal, finished in 1820; and he established at Ras et-Tin his favorite residence. The old Eunostus harbour became the port, and a flourishing city arose on the Pharos island and the Heptastadion district, with outlying suburbs and villa residences along the coast eastwards and the Mareotic shore.

Being the starting-point of the "overland route" to India, and the residence of the chief foreign consuls, it quickly acquired a European character and attracted not only French residents, but great numbers of Greeks, Jews and Syrians. There most of the negotiations between the powers and Mehemet All were conducted; from there started the Egyptian naval expeditions to Crete, the Morea and Syria; and thither sailed the betrayed Ottoman fleet in 1839. It was twice threatened by hostile fleets, the Greek in 1827 and the combined British, French and Russian squadrons in 1828.

The latter withdrew on the viceroy's promise that Ibrahim should evacuate the Morea. The fortifications were strengthened in 1841, and remained in an antiquated condition until 1882, when they were renovated by Arabi Pasha. Alexandria was connected with Cairo by railway in 1856.

Much favored by the earlier viceroys of Mehemet Ali's house, and removed from the Mameluke troubles, Alexandria was the real capital of Egypt until Said Pasha died there in 1863 and Ismail Pasha came into power. Though this prince continued to develop the city, giving it a municipality in 1861 and new harbour works in 1871-1878, he developed Cairo still more; and the center of gravity definitely shifted to the inland capital.

Fate, however, again brought Alexandria to the front. After a mutiny of soldiers there in 1881, the town was greatly excited by the arrival of an Anglo-French fleet in May 1882, and on June 11 a terrible riot and massacre took place, resulting in the death of four hundred Europeans.

Since satisfaction was not given for this and the forts were being strengthened at the instigation of Arabi Pasha, the war minister, the British admiral, Sir Frederick Beauchamp Seymour (afterwards Lord Alcester), sent an ultimatum on July 10 and opened fire on the forts the next day. They were demolished, but as no troops were landed immediately a fresh riot and massacre ensued.

As Arabi did not submit, a British military expedition landed at Alexandria on August 10, following which the British engaged in the occupation of the whole country.

Under British control

Alexandria has greatly expanded since then. As the British consular report for 1904 says, "Building ... for residential and other purposes proceeds with almost feverish rapidity. The cost of living has doubled and the price of land has risen enormously."

Alexandria was developed into a major Royal Navy base, with the strategic Suez Canal to the east, it was the eastern Mediterranean Sea. During theSecond World War and the North Africa Campaign of 1940 — 1943. The decisive Battles of El Alamein were fought to the west.

The Egyptian Military Coup of 1952 saw Colonel Nasser take power and the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1954 made provision for the withdrawal of British troops.

The film Ice Cold in Alex would later be set here.

This section is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Near cities to Alexandria

• El Alamein travel guide 100 km
• Cairo travel guide 180 km
• Damietta travel guide 180 km
• Al Jizah travel guide 180 km
• Port Said travel guide 230 km
• Bani Suwayf travel guide 260 km
• Suez travel guide 290 km
• Al Minya travel guide 350 km
• Sederot travel guide 450 km
• Ashqelon travel guide 450 km

Near webcams to Alexandria

• Paphos Beach webcam 460 km
• Tel Aviv - Hilton Beach webcam 470 km
• Tel Aviv - Beach webcam 470 km
• Jerusalem - Western Wall webcam 510 km
• Jerusalem - Golden Gate webcam 510 km
• Western Wall webcam 510 km
• Western Wall webcam 510 km
• Jerusalem - Olive Hill webcam 510 km
• Nicosia webcam 550 km
• Beirut - Jounieh Highway webcam 600 km

back to top

Alexandria travel services

cheap flights to Alexandria

• book cheap flights to Alexandria »
• book cheap flights to Egypt »

City Travel Guide is exclusive partner of four main cheap airline tickets and cheap flights online booking systems. We are happy to offer cheap airline tickets Alexandria, cheap flights Alexandria, also available cheap airline tickets to Egypt and to the whole world. Up to date cheap flights Alexandria deals also available.

cheap Alexandria hotels

• book cheap hotels to Alexandria »
• book cheap hotels to Egypt »

City Travel Guide is exclusive partner of main cheap hotels and accommodation online booking systems. We are happy to offer cheap hotels in Alexandria, Egypt hotel guide and cheap hotels and accommodation in lot of other world-wide destinations. Up to date cheap Alexandria hotel deals and discount accommodation tips also available.

cheap Alexandria vacations

• book Alexandria vacations »
• book Egypt vacations »

City Travel Guide is exclusive partner of main cheap vacations online booking systems. We are happy to offer cheap vacations in Alexandria, Egypt vacation rentals and cheap vacations in lot of other destinations world-wide. Up to date Alexandria vacation deals also available.

cheap car rentals in Alexandria

• book cheap car rental in Alexandria »
• book cheap car rentals in Egypt »

City Travel Guide is exclusive partner of main car rentals online booking systems. We are happy to offer car rentals in Alexandria, car hire in Egypt and cheap car rental in lot other world-wide destinations. Up to date cheap Alexandria car hire deals also available.

Alexandria travel insurance

• Alexandria cheap travel insurance »
• cheap travel insurance for Egypt »

City Travel Guide is exclusive partner of Essential Travel Ltd., leading online travel insurance company, we can offer you health travel insurance for Alexandria, accident health Alexandria travel insurance, all using our online Alexandria travel insurance form. We also offer travel insurance for other cities in Egypt. This offer is available for UK residents only.

Alexandria real estate

• Alexandria real estate guide »
• real estate listings in Egypt »

City Travel Guide comes with Alexandria real estate guide with several tips on home valuation, realtors comparison, secrets on finding the "right" home, loans guide and other helpful real estate advices. Our partners also maintain Alexandria property for sale and rental listings, real estate laws and reviews. We will try to help you with buying property in Egypt, choosing real estate agents, property finders, relocation help, and information for English speakers wanting to buy real estate in Alexandria.

back to top

Alexandria travel books

Alexandria travel guide books

• Alexandria travel guide books »
• Egypt travel guide books »

Alexandria maps and atlases

• Alexandria maps and atlases »
• Egypt maps and atlases »

back to top