Antoniades Palace & Gardens

Antoniades Gardens are the oldest in Alexandria and among the oldest gardens created by humans anywhere. Some historians date their establishment to the Ptolemaic era in Egypt, as they lay within the suburb of Eleusis — the so-called Gardens of Bliss — a suburb that witnessed important historical events of the Ptolemaic kings.

In the nineteenth century the gardens belonged to a wealthy Greek and were known as Bastiria Gardens, until Muhammad Ali Pasha took ownership and built a palace there. At that time the gardens covered about 50 feddans. Ownership of the palace passed to the Greek Baron John Antoniades in 1860, and the gardens were subsequently named after him.