El Alamein — three cemeteries and a refurbished military museum on the site of the 1942 battle.

What you are looking at

El Alamein is the small Mediterranean town 110 kilometres east of Marsa Matruh that gave its name to the two crucial 1942 battles between the British Eighth Army under Montgomery and the German-Italian Panzer Army Africa under Rommel. The second battle (23 October – 11 November 1942) is conventionally treated as the turning point of the North African campaign and one of the strategic turning points of the European theatre. The town today is otherwise quiet — a small marine base, a handful of cafés, the railway station — but the desert south and east of it holds the three principal war cemeteries that bury the dead of the campaign (Commonwealth, German, Italian) and the military museum that interprets the battle on the actual ground where it was fought.

For families this is a genuinely good educational visit, and one of the few in the wider region that does not depend on bright sunshine or beach weather — the cemeteries are walkable in any temperature and the museum is air-conditioned. We have brought our editorial children here since 2017 and the experience has worked at every age from 8 upward. Below 8 the abstract concept of why so many people are buried in one place is hard for kids to hold; we cover what works younger in the section further down.

The three cemeteries are administered by three separate national commissions and have their own visiting rules. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery is the largest (7,367 graves) and the most welcoming to general family visitors. The German cemetery at the modernist Hochkreuz pyramid is smaller (4,200 graves) and structurally a meditation on collective German losses rather than individual headstones. The Italian cemetery is a marble mausoleum (4,800 graves) on the coast road; its opening hours are the most restricted of the three.

On the ground

The Commonwealth and German cemeteries are free to visit; the Italian Sacrario is technically free but the custodian accepts a small voluntary donation (most visitors leave EGP 50). The Military Museum charges EGP 100 for foreign adult visitors, EGP 50 student, EGP 20 Egyptian national, with an additional EGP 50 photography permit. The custodian at each cemetery and the museum staff have moderate English; the Commonwealth cemetery's published visitor records are in English, the German cemetery's in German with English translation cards available on request.

Transport from Marsa Matruh: 110 km on the coastal highway, approximately 1 hour 20 minutes. From Alexandria: 105 km on the desert highway, approximately 1 hour 30 minutes. A train runs daily from Alexandria via El Alamein to Marsa Matruh but the station is 3 km from the cemeteries and the local taxi situation is improvised; for a family visit a private car is the practical option. Subscribers receive the recommended driver-guide shortlist for the El Alamein day specifically.

What kids find moving: the rows of headstones with names and ages (many casualties were under 21), the multilingual nature of the casualty list (Australian, New Zealand, Indian, South African, British soldiers all buried alongside), the family condolences engraved at the foot of many of the Commonwealth headstones. What kids find harder: the Hochkreuz interior at the German cemetery is dim and the iconography is heavy. We suggest the German cemetery for older children (10+) who have studied the WW2 European theatre in school; for younger children the Commonwealth cemetery alone is the right visit.

Reading list

• Commonwealth War Graves Commission. El Alamein War Cemetery: Visitor Information. Annual bilingual leaflet at the cemetery office.
• Adcock, C. El Alamein for the Family Visitor. Marwa Family Guides subscriber monograph, 2025.
• Latimer, J. Alamein. John Murray, 2002. Standard popular military history of the campaign.
• Marwa Family Guides field notebooks 2017–2026, "ELA" tag in the subscriber archive.