El Montaza Gardens

Montaza 2, Egypt, Egypt

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El Montaza Gardens, now known as El-Montaza Park, is one of Alexandria's largest and most important green spaces, located in the Montaza district along the Mediterranean Sea coastline.

The park encompasses the former expansive royal gardens of 300 acres (120 hectares), offering a picturesque retreat with lush forests, beautiful bays, and stunning views of the Mediterranean Sea. The gardens were originally built in the late 1800s by Khedive Abbas Hilmy II, Egypt's ruler from 1892 to 1914, who discovered the location during an evening moonlit donkey ride and decided to build a hunting lodge and summer palace there called Salamlek.

In the 1920s, King Fouad I added the larger El-Haramlek Palace with royal gardens, designed in a mix of Florentine Ottoman architecture with two distinctive towers. After Egypt's 1952 revolution, the government seized the complex and opened it to public visitors, transforming the gardens into a public landscape park and forest reserve.

Today, El-Montaza Park remains an iconic landmark of Alexandria's cityscape, featuring small cabins along the beaches and bays for Egyptians to use during summer months, while El-Haramlek Palace serves as a public museum showcasing Muhammad Ali Dynasty family history and art objects.