A villa on a plantation, Nile Delta.
A villa in the Nile Delta, between Cairo and Alexandrie. This is the back side, the owner looking into the camera.
The villa is part of a 20 hectares fruit estate of palm dates, mandarins, oranges, guavas and limes. It is a 7 bedroom, three story Italian style country house surrounded by a huge flower garden. The setting could have been a country side villa in Spain or Italy, including the Doberman watch dogs [1].
However, as soon as you leave the estate you are definitely in the rural countryside of the Nile Delta.
The villa used to belong to the high ranking Coptic Christian family of Shenouda whose great grand parents started the estate some 150 years ago by planting imported orange, mandarin, guavas an lime trees in between date palms.
The first house, some 150 years old, is still there but now a derelict. Some 30 years ago a new three story 350 m2 concrete house was build. With its fresh light whitewash, it stands out from a large distance. It was build by the last son who is a gynaecologist educated in England and married to an English wife. They preferred a European style house, living separate from the rest of the family.
The family were very influential and rich, visible from the old derelict majestic house with some ten rooms with high ceilings and fresco's. The last king of Egypt, King Farouk, disposed by Nasser in 1952, has been at this place.