Things to do in El Alamein

El Alamein sits on the north coast, on the same desert road as Alexandria, and it works best as a history detour tacked onto an Alexandria day rather than a separate trip from Cairo.

The town holds the Commonwealth war cemetery, the German and Italian memorials, and the battlefield museum covering the 1942 campaign that turned the course of the North African war.

There is no direct Cairo-to-El Alamein excursion in most operators' catalogues; it appears as an add-on or a combined itinerary with Alexandria, booked as a private full-day car from Cairo or as an extension of an Alexandria tour. Rows of white headstones and the sheer number of nationalities buried here make it a sober stop, not a beach day.