Alexander the Great founded his namesake city in 331 BCE on a limestone ridge between Lake Mareotis and the Mediterranean, and within three centuries it became the intellectual capital of the ancient world. Its Great Library held 700,000 scrolls; its Pharos lighthouse stood 134 metres tall, guiding ships until an earthquake toppled it in 1323. Today the shoreline curves past the medieval Citadel of Qaitbay, built on the lighthouse's ruins, while beneath the modern city lie Roman catacombs carved three levels deep into bedrock. Cairo to Alexandria day trips cross 220 kilometres of Delta farmland to reach a city that feels distinctly Mediterranean — French balconies, tramlines, sea breeze cutting through the desert heat. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, opened in 2002, honours the ancient library with a tilted disc of glass and granite holding eight million volumes. The Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, discovered in 1900 when a donkey fell through the ground, merge Pharaonic, Greek, and Roman iconography in second-century burial chambers. Anubis wears a legionnaire's armour; Medusa faces carved into the rotunda; a triclinium where families feasted beside the dead. The Citadel of Qaitbay commands the eastern harbour where Cleopatra's palace once stood, now submerged six metres below the waterline. Sultan Qaitbay built the fortress in 1477 using granite blocks salvaged from the fallen Pharos, creating a three-storey defensive structure with walls four metres thick. Montaza Palace, 20th-century summer residence of King Farouk, spreads across 150 hectares of royal gardens overlooking turquoise water. Alexandria opens 09:00–17:00 daily; conservation fees apply at major sites. Arrive between 09:00–11:00 to beat afternoon crowds and coastal humidity. The city holds 5.2 million people, Egypt's second-largest population, yet retains the pace of a port town where fishing boats still anchor in the same harbours that saw Ptolemaic grain ships and Ottoman galleons.