Manage expectations first: ancient Alexandria — the lighthouse, the palaces, the great Library — is gone, under the sea and under the streets. What the city offers instead is layered and likeable: a curving seafront Corniche, faded belle-époque streets, Greco-Roman remains preserved mostly because they were buried, and the best fish lunch in the country.
The classic day runs four stops. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina — the modern answer to the ancient library and the best contemporary building in Egypt. The Citadel of Qaitbay, the fifteenth-century fort standing on the lighthouse's foundations, partly built from its stones. The catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa, where Egyptian, Greek and Roman art collide in one carved chamber underground — pair them with Pompey's Pillar a few minutes away. And a long seafood lunch on the harbour, which locals will tell you is the actual reason the city exists.
The logistics, honestly
Both road and rail take in the region of two and a half to three hours each way, and the choice is temperament. The train runs city centre to city centre with no traffic anxiety and the Delta's farmland out of the window; a car-and-driver day — the shape our Alexandria day tour takes — collects you at the hotel, strings the stops together without negotiation, and spares you the taxi haggling at the far end, which is the day's only real friction point.
Start early and treat it as a full day: out by seven, back for a late Cairo dinner. The compressed version — leaving mid-morning, cutting the catacombs — is the version that generates the 'not worth it' reviews.
Who should skip it
On a first, short Egypt trip — a week or less — the honest advice is that Luxor deserves those hours more. Alexandria rewards second visits, longer itineraries, lovers of cities over sites, and anyone whose trip has started to feel like a tomb checklist. It is a palate cleanser of a day; order it when the menu needs one.