Manial Palace

Prince Muhammad Ali Tawfiq, a cousin of King Farouk, built the complex between 1899 and 1929 and made a deliberate exercise of it: rather than one palace he put up five separate buildings, each in a different historical style, so the reception hall is Ottoman, the residence is Moroccan and Andalusian, the throne hall is another register again, and a private mosque and a hunting museum complete the set. The interiors are the point, with lustre tilework, painted and gilded ceilings, inlaid furniture and a blue Damascene salon, all in far better condition than most Cairo interiors of the period. The garden around them was planted as a botanical collection with rare palms and banyans and remains one of the quieter green spaces in the city. The hunting museum holds the prince's trophies and is not to everyone's taste.

History

The land on Rhoda Island passed through several hands, among them Khedive Ismail and later French owners, before Prince Mohamed Ali, son of Khedive Mohamed Tewfik and heir apparent, bought it in 1902. He chose the site himself and designed the palace and its decoration as a revival of Islamic art, beginning with the Residence Palace and adding the other buildings, five in all, mixing Fatimid, Mamluk, Ottoman, Andalusian, Persian and Levantine styles in English landscape gardens along a branch of the Nile; an inscription at the entrance records that the master builder Mohamed Afifi carried out the work, in 1348 AH. The prince entertained ministers, intellectuals and journalists here and asked in his will that the palace become a museum. In 1964 a hotel of wooden chalets was built in its gardens, and the chalets were later demolished and the gardens returned to the museum (Wikipedia, Manial Palace and Museum).

Highlights

• Five buildings in five styles - Ottoman, Moorish, Andalusian and more on one site.
• The Damascene blue salon - lustre tiles and painted panelling.
• The private mosque - a small jewel of tilework in the garden.
• A botanical garden - rare palms and banyans planted by the prince.

When to go

October to April. Mornings are quiet and the light reaches into the tiled rooms. The garden is pleasant even in warmer months thanks to the tree cover. Two to three hours for the buildings and the garden together.

What to expect

It is well off the standard route and few tours come, which is good for quiet but means limited staffing and occasional room closures. Photography inside sometimes requires an extra ticket. The hunting museum, full of mounted heads, is grim. Rhoda island is awkward to reach on foot.

Nearby

The Nilometer stands at the southern tip of the same island; Coptic Cairo is across the water.

Key facts