Alexandria, Egypt
Major library and cultural center in Alexandria, Egypt
On the Shatby seafront, near the site of the ancient library that was once the greatest of the classical world, stands the Bibliotheca Alexandrina: a huge tilted disc of glass and aluminium leaning towards the sea like a rising sun, ringed by an Aswan granite wall carved with letters from the world's scripts. It opened in 2002 after a project backed by UNESCO, and at the time its reading room was the largest in the world. It has shelf space for eight million books and, beyond the library itself, a conference centre, a planetarium, a manuscript restoration lab and several museums and galleries: the Antiquities Museum with pieces from Pharaonic to Islamic times, the Manuscripts Museum, the Sadat Museum and permanent art exhibitions. It also hosts a copy of the Internet Archive. The guided tour of the reading room, its seven terraced levels stepping down under the glass roof, is reason enough to come.
Buy tickets at the office facing the university, and add the Antiquities Museum ticket if you like artefacts. Allow two to three hours. Tours run in Arabic, English and other languages. Large bags go to the cloakroom. Hours change, so check the library's website, and avoid Friday.
Hours and prices change — check before you go. Source: en.wikipedia.org
No reviews yet
Share your experience and help other travellers decide.
