Montazah Palace Gardens

A large public park on the eastern edge of Alexandria, wrapping around a headland with its own beaches, pine woods and gardens. The palace at its centre is not open to visitors, but the grounds are — and for Alexandrians this is the main green space in a very dense city.

What it is good for

• Walking — several kilometres of paths through gardens, palms and Aleppo pines
• The bridge and the cove — a picturesque arched footbridge to a small island, the most photographed spot in Alexandria
• Beaches — a series of small sheltered bays within the grounds
• The view back along the coast towards the city

It is busy at weekends and during holidays, and quiet on a weekday morning. There is an entry fee for the park.

Khedive Abbas II built the first building here, the Salamlek, in 1892 — an Austrian-style hunting lodge, put up for a companion rather than for affairs of state, on a headland he had chosen for the sea air.

The larger palace, the Haramlik, was added by King Fuad in 1932 as a summer residence. Its style is a mixture of Florentine and Ottoman, and its central tower is a direct quotation of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence — an unusual thing to find on the Egyptian coast, and characteristic of a dynasty that liked to gesture towards Europe.

The last days of the monarchy

Montaza was King Farouk's favoured summer residence, and the royal family spent the hot months here. In July 1952, when the Free Officers took power, Farouk was at Montaza. He left for Ras el-Tin palace in the city and sailed into exile from Alexandria days later.

The palace passed to the state, was used for a time as a presidential residence, and the grounds were opened to the public.

The gardens

The planting is part of the point. Some 150 acres were laid out with imported species alongside native ones, and the mature pines and palms are now a century old. In a city with very little public green space and a great deal of concrete, Montaza does a lot of work — on a Friday it is full of families who have come simply to sit under trees.