Cairo · Heliopolis
Merryland Park
Heliopolis's old racecourse turned neighbourhood park: grass, water, and crowds until midnight.
Merryland is the old Heliopolis racecourse, now a large public garden: lakes, shaded lawns, planted avenues, cafés and small restaurants, bicycles and electric scooters for hire, a zipline, and a corner of fairground rides for children. Entry costs a few tens of pounds and the park stays open until midnight — this is Masr El-Gedida's evening outing, the one you make when the heat drops and the children will no longer stay indoors. It is not an ornamental garden: it is a neighbourhood park, popular and loud at the weekend, where families settle on the grass for the whole evening. The place is very much alive — the Cairo Marathon set its start here in February 2026 — and that is the point of it: five minutes from the streets of Heliopolis there is water, shade and room to run.
The extra bit
Come on a weekday rather than a Friday: entry is cheaper outside weekends and public holidays, and you can still choose your patch of grass. Bring small notes, because entry, the rides, the zipline and the hire are each paid separately, at different windows. And look at what is actually running before you pay: a zipline that is out of service is announced nowhere.
Know before you go
Entry is token — of the order of twenty pounds, a little more at weekends and on public holidays — but it covers nothing: rides, zipline, bicycles and scooters are all paid for separately. On Friday evenings, at Eid and during the school holidays the park is full and the paths are walked at a shuffle. In the middle of a summer afternoon the grass burns and the shade is fought over: the park only becomes pleasant once the sun is down, and it closes at midnight. The district is dense and parking is hard; on race days — the Cairo Marathon started from here in February 2026 — the surrounding streets are closed from the morning.
