Photo: Aya Mahmoud Naguib Ibrahim (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio tour of Greek and Roman Alexandria: the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa and the Hall of Caracalla, the Serapeum and Pompey's Pillar, the theatre, lecture halls, baths and Villa of the Birds at Kom el-Dikka, the search for Alexander's tomb, the Graeco-Roman Museum, the Caesareum and Cleopatra's Needles, the Pharos and the Citadel of Qaitbay built on its site, the Anfushi tombs, the sunken royal quarter of the Eastern Harbour, the National Museum, the ancient walls and the Shatby and Mustafa Kamel tombs. 19 narrated stops spread across about 17 km of the city; the legs to Kom el-Shoqafa, to Qaitbay and Anfushi, and out to the Mustafa Kamel tombs at Rushdi are best driven. Catacombs, tombs and museums open on their own schedules, and some need a separate ticket.
19 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 248 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 97 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, Hall of Caracalla, Serapeum of Alexandria, Pompey's Pillar.
Roman Theatre of Kom el-Dikka, Lecture Halls of Kom el-Dikka, Roman Baths of Kom el-Dikka, Villa of the Birds, Tomb of Alexander the Great, Graeco-Roman Museum, Caesareum and Cleopatra's Needles, Pharos of Alexandria, Citadel of Qaitbay, Anfushi Tombs.
Eastern Harbour and the Royal Quarter, Alexandria National Museum, Ancient Town Wall of Alexandria, Shatby Necropolis, Mustafa Kamel Necropolis.
A family tomb cut into the rock that came to hold up to 300 burials, where Anubis stands guard dressed as a Roman legionary.
A red Aswan granite column raised for the emperor Diocletian; its name is a medieval mistake, and it has nothing to do with Pompey.
A small theatre with a red granite front row and marble seats that still carry graffiti cheering chariot-race winners.
The sanctuary where Hypatia was killed in 415, whose two obelisks now stand in London and New York.
The fortress Sultan Qaitbay built from 1477 on the site of the Pharos, using stones from the fallen lighthouse.
The ancient accounts, the modern claims and the Nabi Daniel tradition, and why no certain remains have ever been identified.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 19 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 19 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Ancient Alexandria — Catacombs, Pompey's Pillar, Kom el-Dikka and the Pharos, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
19 narration points, including Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, Hall of Caracalla, Serapeum of Alexandria, Pompey's Pillar and Roman Theatre of Kom el-Dikka. That is about 34 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Yes, from Alexandria. There is no start time and no group to keep up with, so you can stop at any point and head back to the ship. Keep your own eye on the all-aboard time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~4 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 19 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.