ALEXANDRINA LIBRARY

Since 2002, the new Library of Alexandria (BA) has stood close to where the venerable library, an integral part of the Mouseion, stood in antiquity. It housed over 500,000 manuscripts, attracting scholars from all over the Hellenistic world. The new BA lives up to the myth: the fruit of international collaboration, it is an extraordinary library, the only one of its kind in the world, housing two and a half million works in 60 languages (500,000 of which are digitized and accessible online). It's also the world's largest indoor hall, with seven interconnected levels... The BA also houses 3 museums.

Designed by a Norwegian firm, its cost of around 180 million dollars was borne by Egypt, Unesco and several foreign countries. Numerous Western libraries donated copies of manuscripts. In addition to being a research center for the history of Egypt and the Mediterranean world, this establishment is also an enormous cultural center, with a project for the city's future over the next fifty years. France is taking part in the project through a partnership with the Institut du Monde Arabe, thus maintaining the cultural dialogue between Paris and Alexandria.

In addition to the library hall, a real architectural feat, you can also visit the permanent exhibitions: the museum of ancient manuscripts, the Mohammed Awad collection devoted to the history of Alexandria; the archaeological museum; the science museum and the planetarium.