About Alexandria/Attractions

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[edit] Attractions

Alexandria is really a beautiful city , it's the pearl of the Mediterranean

[edit] Alexandria library

It is much more than a library. It contains:

• A library that can hold millions of books.
• An internet archive
• Six specialized libraries for
  • arts, multimedia and audio-visual materials
  • the visually impaired
  • children
  • the young
  • microforms
  • rare books and special collections

• Three Museums for
  • Antiquities
  • Manuscripts
  • the History of Science

• A Planetarium

• An Exploratorium for children’s exposure to science (ALEXploratorium)

• Culturama: a cultural panorama over nine screens, the first ever patented 9-projector interactive system. Winner of many awards, the Culturama, developed by CULTNAT, allows the presentation of a wealth of data layers, where the presenter can click on an item and go to a new level of detail. It is a remarkably informative and attractive multi-media presentation of Egypt’s heritage across 5000 years of history to these modern times, with highlights and examples of Ancient Egyptian and Coptic/Muslim heritage.

• VISTA (The Virtual Immersive Science and Technology Applications system) is an interactive Virtual Reality environment, allowing researchers to transform two-dimensional data sets into 3-D simulations, and to step inside them. A practical tool of visualization during research, VISTA helps researchers to simulate the behavior of natural or human-engineered systems, instead of merely observing a system or building a physical model.

• Seven academic research centers:
  • Alexandria and Mediterranean Research Center (Alex-Med)
  • Arts Center
  • Calligraphy Center
  • Center for Special Studies and Programs (CSSP)
  • International School of Information Studies (ISIS)
  • Manuscript Center
  • Center for the Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CultNat, located in Cairo)

• Nine permanent exhibitions covering
  • Impressions of Alexandria: The Awad Collection
  • The World of Shadi Abdel Salam
  • Arabic Calligraphy
  • The History of Printing
  • The Artist’s Book
  • Arab-Muslim Medieval Instruments of Astronomy and Science
  • Mohie El Din Hussein: A Creative Journey
  • Abdel Salam Eid
  • Raaya El-Nimr and Abdel-Ghani Abou El-Enein.

• Four art galleries for temporary exhibitions

• A Conference Center for thousands of people

• A Dialogue Forum which provides opportunities for the meeting of, and discussions with thinkers, authors and writers to discuss various salient issues affecting modern societies. The Arab Reform Forum was the product of the first Arab Reform Conference organized in 2004.

• The New Library of Alexandria also hosts a number of institutions:
  • The Academia Bibliotheca Alexandrinae (ABA)
  • Arabic Society for Ethics in Science & Technology (ASEST)
  • The Anna Lindh Foundation for Dialogue between Cultures, the first Euro–Med foundation based outside Europe
  • The Institute for Peace Studies (IPS) of the Suzanne Mubarak Women for Peace Movement
  • The HCM Medical Research project (located in Shallalat premises)
  • The Jean-Rene Dupuy Center for Law and Development
  • The Arab Regional Office of the Academy of Science for the Developing World (ARO-TWAS)
  • The International Federation for Library Associations (IFLA) Regional Office
  • The Secretariat of the Arab National Commissions of UNESCO
  • The Middle Eastern and North African Network for Environmental Economics (MENANEE)

The number is growing and the Library of Alexandria is becoming the nerve center of many international and regional networks.

[edit] Fort Qaitbey

It is one of the main tourist attractions of Alexandria and really one of the icons of the city. It is a beautiful location, overlooking and with a great view of the Mediterranean Sea and of Alexandria as well. The fortress itself has the look of a storybook castle, where the imagination of particularly the young can spiral into dreams of a more romantic age, of coastal sea battles between French and English ships and even pirates. The entrance fees for the fortress are two pounds LE for Egyptians and twelve LE for foreigners.

[edit] Alexandria Corniche

The Corniche is lined with beaches, with full tourist facilities, from the city centre outwards. In town try the Stanley beach, further east Montazah Beach and Ma'amoura are two of the best. At Abu Qir, a small fishing town, you can sunbathe, fish, swim and eat fresh seafood. To the west of the city, try the resorts of Agami or Hannoville.

In spite of miles of white sand beaches and azure sea, Egypt's Med is still undeveloped and relatively unpopulated. There are fine beaches all along the coast from Alex to Mersa Matrouh, including the resort of Sidi Abd al Rahman, a secluded bay with dear waters and a selection of villas and hotels. At Mersa Matrouh itself, the natural bay and long white beach make for good sunbathing and swimming in calm transparent waters. Hired bicycles, carettas or open-sided tuf-tuf buses will take you to other good bathing spots nearby including the outstar beach at Al-Abyad and Ageebah cove, surrounded by beautiful scenery. As well as beaches there are other attractions in the Mersa Matrouh area: Cleopatra's Bath, a rock-hewn whirlpool bath off- shore which was supposedly used by Antony and Cleopatra, a ruined temple fort built by Ramses II, an early Coptic chapel and "Rommel's Hideout", a cave where the general planned his military campaigns and which has now been tumed into a military museum.

[edit] Antoniades Garden

The Villa of Antoniadis is a very famous and important site in Alexandria, and yet is not frequented by many tourists. The Villa is listed as historical monument number 1,250 in the governorate conservation registry. It lies near the Mahmoudia Canal at the southern entrance of Alexandria, and is surrounded by some 48 hectares of greenery in several sections. They include the Antoniadis Garden, the Flower Garden, the Zoological and Botanical Gardens and the Nouzaba (Nuzha) Garden, which was a residential suburb inhabited by the likes of Callimachous (310-240 BC), the head librarian of the ancient Library of Alexandria at that time. In 640 AD, the Roman general Pompilius thwarted the King of Syria's attempt to capture Alexandria, while in the same year the cavalry of the Arab conqueror Amr Ibn el-As pitched camp before entering the city.

Here, once the venue for military bands, diverse greenery originally planted during the reign of the Khedive Ismail have grown to maturity. The Antoniadis Gardens include beautiful statues and a tropical greenhouse. The Zoological Gardens were opened in 1907 and cover 25 acres. But watch out. Among the many species of birds are macaws, that swear like sailors, tutored by long-departed British soldiers.

This area, known as the Somuha district, was a magnet for wealthy Alexandrians. It is named after a Baghdad-born Jewish architect named Joseph Somuha, who moved to Egypt in the 1920s. His Somuha City, as it was originally called, was the local equivalent of Cairo's Heliopolis, a modern suburb for the upper middle classes. There was at one time a number of foreigners who also lived here.

The Antoniadis Palace and its park are constructed as a miniature version of the Palace of Versaille. The Villa and its garden date back to the 19th century, and is mainly used to house a collection of statues sculpted in the Greek style and owned by Sir John Antoniadis. It consists of a basement level of 434 square meters, a ground floor of 1,085 square meters, a second floor of 860 meters and a roof area of 480 square meters, for a total area of 2,859 square meters. The ground and second floors include 15 rooms each. There are several archeological remains, including a tomb and a cistern.

[edit] The Roman Theater

Place: The Roman Theater in Kom el Dekka

Phone #: 03 3902904

Opening hours: Every day from 9:00am to 4:30pm

Admission: 2 LE For both Egyptian students and Egyptian visitors. Senior foreigners pay 15LE and foreigner students pay 10LE.

Description: : Over 30 years of excavation have led to the discovery of many Roman remains including this well-preserved theater with marble seats for up to 800 spectators, galleries and sections of mosaic-flooring. In Ptolemaic times this area was the Park of Pan, a pleasure garden surrounded by Roman villas and baths.