Kom El Deka

Kom El Deka is Alexandria's most important classical archaeological site, a green excavation zone in the middle of the modern city that has revealed a slice of the Graeco-Roman metropolis. Uncovered from the 1960s onward, it centres on the only Roman theatre ever found in Egypt, a compact semicircle of white and grey marble tiers.

The theatre is the highlight but not the whole story. Around it archaeologists exposed a bath complex, lecture halls once linked to Alexandria's famous scholarly life, and a residential quarter whose grandest house preserves the celebrated Villa of the Birds, its floor mosaics depicting pigeons, a peacock and other creatures in delicate coloured stone.

Together the ruins evoke daily life in a great ancient city in a way the scattered monuments elsewhere in Alexandria cannot. Visitors follow raised walkways above the marble seating, the bath foundations and the mosaic floors, reading the plan of streets and cisterns that once served a cosmopolitan population.

The site sits conveniently in the city centre, a short walk from the main railway station and the seafront corniche, so it slots easily into a day that also takes in the catacombs and the Graeco-Roman collections. A small covered shelter protects the best mosaics, and information panels help make sense of the layout. Come earlier in the day to avoid the strongest sun on the open terraces, wear a hat, and buy the combined ticket if you plan to enter the Villa of the Birds, which carries a separate charge. The marble seating photographs beautifully in raking morning or late-afternoon light. For anyone curious about the classical layers beneath modern Alexandria, this excavation is the clearest window onto the Roman city that once rivalled Rome itself.