Alexandria

Alexandria is Egypt's traditional summer seaside, and from June to September the sea is warm, around 26°C at its peak, with families packed along the Corniche beaches from morning until long after dark. The public city beaches are narrow, crowded and not always clean, and the pleasanter sand at Montaza and Mamoura in the east sits behind gates as paid beach clubs.

Beach life here is local and conservative: most women swim covered, and bikinis are really only comfortable at private clubs and hotel beaches. Visitors who want long, clear-water beaches tend to head west along the North Coast, which is further than an easy outing. As a base for a few swims alongside sightseeing it works; as a beach vacation it does not.

Fish is the reason to eat in Alexandria. In the seafood restaurants around Anfushi and the Eastern Harbour you choose your catch from ice, have it weighed, and get it back grilled, fried or baked in clay with rice, tahini and salads. The city has street food of its own too: spiced Alexandrian liver sandwiches, ful and falafel, and fiteer pastries from late-night counters.

The Greek and Italian communities who lived here left old patisseries and tea rooms on the downtown squares, and the long seafront coffee houses serve tea and shisha into the small hours. The range is narrow, though, with little fine dining and few international kitchens, and wine or beer only in hotels and a handful of old bars.

Alexandria's history is vast, but it is mostly underground or underwater, so a visit means collecting fragments rather than walking an ancient city. The best are the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, where Egyptian and Roman styles mix in tomb carvings, the Roman theatre and baths at Kom el-Dikka, Pompey's Pillar on its hill, and the Graeco-Roman and National museums.

The Qaitbay Citadel stands on the site of the ancient Pharos, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina makes a striking modern counterpart to the lost library, and Montaza's royal palace and gardens close the Corniche to the east. Between them lies a faded cosmopolitan city of belle époque façades, old cafés and the house of the poet Cavafy, best taken in slowly over two or three days.

Evenings in Alexandria are long but sober. In summer the Corniche fills after sunset and stays busy past midnight, with coffee houses, juice stalls and shisha terraces facing the sea. Drinking is limited to a few old-fashioned bars downtown left from the city's Greek era and the hotel lounges, and there is no club scene to speak of. It suits a slow evening of sea air and conversation, not a night out.

The landscape is the sea itself and not much else. The Corniche makes a long seafront walk, sunsets over the Eastern Harbour are the daily show, and divers can explore the submerged remains of the Pharos and Ptolemaic quarter offshore. Inland the city meets flat farmland, the reed beds of Lake Mariout and then desert. There are no hills, forests or hiking to speak of, and visitors who want wild country have to go a long way.

Rosetta, about an hour east on the Nile mouth, has Ottoman merchant houses and the place where the famous stone was found. West along the coast, El Alamein holds the Second World War cemeteries and a military museum, and the desert monasteries of Wadi Natrun, some of the oldest in Christianity, lie towards Cairo. The ruined pilgrimage city of Abu Mena is closer still.

Cairo and the pyramids are reachable by express train in a long day, though the journey takes well over two hours each way and most visitors give them a stay of their own.

Egyptian families have been coming to Alexandria for generations, so children are welcome everywhere and the summer seafront is full of them, with ice cream, horse carriages and paddling. Montaza's gardens give space to run around. Beyond that there is little made for children, the beaches are crowded, and crossing the Corniche traffic with small ones takes real nerve. It works best for older children curious about catacombs and forts.

Alexandria stretches in a long thin strip along about 20km of coast, so sights are spread out from Qaitbay in the west to Montaza in the east. Downtown around Raml Station is walkable, but pavements are broken and crossing the multi-lane Corniche is a hazard. The old yellow tram is atmospheric but slow, and most visitors rely on cheap taxis and ride-hailing, which are easy but often stuck in traffic. No car is needed, and driving yourself is not advised.

Shopping here is local rather than for visitors. The Attarin quarter is a warren of dusty antique and furniture dealers selling relics of the cosmopolitan era, and the souks around Manshiyya and Zanqat el-Sittat sell fabrics, spices and household goods to Alexandrians. Large malls sit out in the suburbs. There is little in the way of crafts, design or fashion worth seeking out.

Alexandria is very cheap for a visitor. Taxis, street food and coffee-house tea cost little, a grilled fish dinner by the harbour is an easy treat, and comfortable seafront hotels are a fraction of Mediterranean prices across the water. Museum and site fees for foreigners are the main spend, and even they are modest. Summer, when Egyptians flock to the coast, pushes room prices up for a few busy weeks.

The Sayed Darwish Theatre, a handsome early twentieth-century hall that serves as Alexandria's opera house, hosts opera, ballet, Arabic music and orchestra concerts, and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina runs its own arts centre with concerts and film. Foreign cultural institutes add small events. The programme is irregular and mostly in Arabic, so this is a city where you catch a performance if one coincides with your visit, not one you plan around.

There is no bathing tradition to seek out in Alexandria, and wellness means a hotel spa at one of the larger seafront hotels. The real way to unwind is the city's own pace outside the summer rush: long mornings in old cafés, sea air on the Corniche and evening walks along the harbour. The traffic noise and crowds of the busy months work against it.