Photo : Khaled Walid — CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Alexandria · Montazah
Montazah Palace
A royal park by the sea where you visit the gardens, not the palace.
The estate was laid out by the royal family at Alexandria's eastern end: the Salamlek, a small palace of 1892 built under Abbas Hilmi II, is now a hotel; the Haramlik, built under Fuad I in the 1930s, mixes a Florentine vocabulary with Ottoman motifs, and its tower is a frank pastiche of the Palazzo Vecchio. People come for the gardens: umbrella pines, lawns sloping down to the rocks, small coves, and a bay closed off by a bridge running out to a pavilion on the water. The main palace does not open to visitors, and that is the first thing to check before paying to go in.
The extra bit
Come on a weekday in the late afternoon and walk out to the bridge: that is where the picture everyone knows is taken, and the light then rakes across the bay.
Know before you go
The estate's beaches and the hotel's cove cost extra on top of the garden ticket. On Fridays, public holidays and right through the summer the park fills with Alexandrian families: pleasant if you came for the atmosphere, trying if you came for the quiet. Beyond the hotel's outlets there is little to eat: bring something to drink.
