Visited in November 2017. Whatever they tell you at the branch of Ministry of Tourism in Alexandria (at the SW corner of Saad Zaghloul Sqaure), there is no direct public transport from the city to the archaeological site and the new monastery. The best way is to hire a taxi and have a good map because taxi drivers are not even aware that there’s a site like this not very far from the city – agree on the price before heading off, we paid 40 USD for six-hour trip. If you really want to get there by public transportation, take a bus to Borg el Arab International Airport and ask the driver to leave you at the junction to New Borg el Arab city. Then you have to wave for the passing cars, although hitchhiking is not recommended. If you’re lucky, you can get to New Borg el Arab, and you’ll still have almost 6 km to walk. It is really time consuming…

Or you can ask at Saint Mark’s Coptic Cathedral – sometime they organize some kind of pilgrimage tours, mostly for Coptic people, and if they have a free place in the bus/minibus, they can take there. Although this kind of tour focuses on the new monastery. I learnt it from the cathedral.

Officially to get to the site you need permission from the new monastery (it is worth to spend there an hour or so and be guided by one of the monks – he will glorify Cyril VI of Alexandria, the Coptic pope who inaugurated the foundation of the new monastery in 1959), where the relics of Saint Mina (and the pope Cyril VI) can be seen. Don’t forget to take your passport/ID with you! You won’t be let in without it. Ask for abuna Thaddeus who is responsible for the UNESCO listed site.

We were lucky because on the day we were visiting Aby Mina (more common name in Arabic is Mari Mina), there was a group of history students from Alexandria and we could join them. When we reached the archaeological site (around 2 km north from the modern monastery) we were invited to the small wooden church (on the photo) recently built to shelter the remains of the original altar from the cathedral from 4th or 5th century. There we had a kind of lecture by abuna Thaddeus – it took more than one hour and was divided in four parts: 1. Life of Abu Mena – as a man, as a soldier, as a saint; 2. The old monastery and the town that developed around it – with detailed information about city layout and its buildings, terracotta industry to produce flasks for holy water, roads leading to the site; 3. Archaeological research which started in 1905; 4. Abu Mena as a WHS and the future of this site in danger. The lecture was in Arabic but we had two interpreters just to us, abuna Paolos and a young university teacher who helps the monastery.

After the lecture we spend 40 minutes walking around what’s left and using our imagination to see the place at its peak. Thanks to our guides it was not so difficult. The site is partially fenced.

There is no entry fee, but you can make any offering or donation.