Pompey’s Pillar, Bibliotheca of Alexandria and Qaietbay Fort

• Pompey's Pillar

  Admission Ticket Free

  Today Your first stop in Alexandria will the Pompey’s Pillar. It is a 28 meter high pillar and dates from the third century. Pompey's Pillar rises from the ruins of the ancient and famous Serapeion (Temple of Serapis), which was once used to store the overflow of manuscripts from the Great Library of Alexandria. This column of red Aswan granite with a Corinthian capital, standing on a badly ruined substructure and rising to a height of almost 27 meters, actually has nothing to do with Pompey and was instead set up in AD 292 in honor of Diocletian, who supplied food for the starving population after the siege of the city.

• Bibliotheca Alexandrina

  1 hoursAdmission Ticket Included

  A re-imagining of Alexandria's ancient Great Library, this gorgeously designed cultural center contains a host of museums, as well as one of the modern world's most ambitious libraries. Its architecture — a giant sun disk — presides over the waterfront Corniche, while inside, a huge reading room can hold eight million volumes. Below the main library, visitors can explore a range of beautifully curated exhibitions. The Manuscript Museum, with its magnificent collection of ancient texts and scrolls, and the Antiquities Museum, with its Greco-Roman antiquities and statuary found during underwater exploration in the harbor, are the two prime attractions. But there are also rotating art exhibitions, a permanent Egyptian folk art collection, and a Science Museum and Planetarium that are aimed squarely at children.

• Kayetbai

  1 hoursAdmission Ticket Included

  It has been erected on the site of the mighty Pharos Lighthouse of Ancient Alexandria - one of the seven wonders of the ancient world — but this fort has been standing guard over Alexandria's eastern harbor since it was built by Mamluke Sultan Qaitbey in an effort to fortify this important Egyptian port from attack on 1480. The Pharos itself vanished from Alexandria in 1303 when it was toppled by a violent earthquake.

• Montazah Gardens

  45 minsAdmission Ticket Included

  An oasis of calm on the city's eastern edge, Montazah is a lush haven of tall palm trees, trimmed lawns, and blossoming flowers that was once off-limits to all but the royal court and their hangers-on. Built as a hunting lodge in the 1890s by Khedive Abbas Hilmi, it was later extended substantially by King Fuad and replaced Ras el-Tin Palace as the royal family's summer house. After the finish of the peaceful walk in the Montazah gardens you will proceed to Cairo returning to your hotel in Cairo.

• Montazah Gardens

  45 minsAdmission Ticket Included

  An oasis of calm on the city's eastern edge, Montazah is a lush haven of tall palm trees, trimmed lawns, and blossoming flowers that was once off-limits to all but the royal court and their hangers-on. Built as a hunting lodge in the 1890s by Khedive Abbas Hilmi, it was later extended substantially by King Fuad and replaced Ras el-Tin Palace as the royal family's summer house. After the finish of the peaceful walk in the Montazah gardens you will proceed to Cairo returning to your hotel in Cairo.