Kom El Dikka

Polish archaeologists working since the 1960s uncovered an entire quarter of Roman and Byzantine Alexandria in the middle of the modern city: a small marble theatre or odeon with thirteen tiers of seating, a large imperial bath complex, cisterns, a residential villa with good mosaic floors, and, most unusually, a row of some twenty lecture halls with stepped benches and a raised teacher's seat, identified as an auditorium complex from the fifth and sixth centuries. That group is the clearest physical evidence anywhere of late antique higher education, and it gives a concrete setting to the city's reputation for learning. The theatre marble came from Europe and Asia Minor, and part of the seating carries later graffiti from circus factions.

What you actually see

• The marble odeon - thirteen tiers of imported marble seating.
• Twenty lecture halls - stepped benches and a raised teaching seat.
• The imperial baths - the heating and water system of a large complex.
• Villa mosaics - floors from a residential quarter, including a birds mosaic.

When to go

April to November. Mornings for the light in the theatre bowl. Two hours including the villa of the birds, which has a separate shelter. The site is central and easy to combine with the museums.

Honest expectations

It is a fenced archaeological park surrounded by traffic and apartment blocks, which limits the atmosphere. The villa of the birds sometimes carries an extra charge. Shade is limited. Signage explains the buildings but not the wider city well.

Nearby

The Graeco-Roman Museum and Alexandria National Museum are close; the Corniche is north.