Palazzo e Giardini di Montazah

I 60 ettari di giardini paesaggistici sono un mosaico di palme reali, pini marittimi, bouganville in fiore e sentieri ombreggiati che si snodano tra collinette e scorci sul Mediterraneo. I giardini degradano verso piccole baie e spiagge rocciose, creando una successione di panorami che uniscono il verde lussureggiante al blu intenso del mare. È il luogo perfetto per una passeggiata rilassata lontano dal trambusto della città.

Il palazzo più piccolo del complesso — ora parzialmente adibito a hotel di lusso — presenta un'affascinante mescolanza di architettura turca ottomana e fiorentina rinascimentale, con una torre caratteristica che è diventata uno dei simboli di Alessandria. Il palazzo principale (Al-Salamlik) non è aperto al pubblico, ma l'esterno è ammirevole dai giardini.

La spiaggia di Montazah, protetta all'interno di una baia naturale, offre acque calme e trasparenti ed è una delle più ambite dai residenti di Alessandria, soprattutto in estate. L'ingresso alla spiaggia è separato da quello dei giardini e richiede un biglietto aggiuntivo.

The original entrance to the Serapeum was via a grand avenue of human-headed sphinxes, carved from limestone and partially buried in drifting sand — it was one of these half-visible sphinxes that led Mariette to the discovery of the entire complex. This processional way once connected the underground burial galleries to the temple complex where the living Apis bull was housed and worshipped at Memphis below. Some of the sphinxes are still visible along the approach path, worn smooth by wind and sand but still recognizable, their serene faces gazing out across the desert plateau. Walking this avenue gives visitors a tangible sense of the funeral processions that once carried mummified bulls along this same route, accompanied by priests, mourners, and the full pageantry of pharaonic ritual.

The Apis bull was the most important sacred animal in ancient Egypt — considered the living incarnation of the god Ptah, creator deity and patron of Memphis, and later associated with Osiris in the afterlife. Only one Apis bull existed at any given time, identified at birth by a precise set of sacred markings: a white diamond on its forehead, an eagle-shaped mark on its back, a scarab-shaped mark under its tongue, and split tail hairs. The chosen bull lived in luxurious quarters at the Temple of Ptah in Memphis, attended by priests and consulted as an oracle — its movements and behavior were interpreted as divine prophecy. When the bull died, the entire nation entered a period of mourning comparable to the death of a pharaoh; the bull was mummified using the finest techniques, placed in one of the massive sarcophagi in the Serapeum, and a nationwide search began immediately for its successor bearing the correct sacred marks.

French archaeologist Auguste Mariette discovered the Serapeum in 1850 through a combination of classical scholarship and sharp-eyed fieldwork — he spotted a half-buried sphinx head protruding from the sand at Saqqara and recalled the ancient Greek geographer Strabo's description of a sphinx-lined avenue leading to the bull burial galleries. Following the line of sphinxes deeper into the desert, Mariette eventually uncovered the entrance to the underground tunnels, a moment he described as one of the most thrilling of his career. Most of the sarcophagi had been plundered in antiquity, but the sheer scale of the tunnels and their colossal stone coffins astounded the archaeological world. Mariette's discovery launched his career and eventually led to his appointment as the first director of Egypt's Antiquities Service, where he founded the predecessor to today's Egyptian Museum in Cairo.