a day unfolds.
Lake · desert · garden ·
Dawn.
The lake wakes first.
An hour before sunrise, the salt lake is a sheet of mercury. Swim if you can bear the cold — the water will hold you up. Otherwise: a wool shawl, a small fire, Siwan tea on the terrace. The mountain is the first thing the sun touches.
Best: October — April · Five minutes from the door
Birket Siwa · 05:43
Garden.
A walk in the palm grove.
Three hundred thousand date palms, ten thousand olives, a hundred small gardens bordered by mud walls the colour of honey. A Siwan farmer will walk with you — a date from the branch in October, pomegranate in November, the first olive oil in December.
Two to three hours · Walk or bicycle
Palm grove · 10:00
Same grove, different season.
Into the dunes.
Dusk, drawn slowly.
00 / 100
Birket Siwa is so salt
it will hold you up.
The stars arrive loudly.
The Milky Way, a third horizon.
Siwa has some of the darkest skies in the Mediterranean basin. When the last lantern goes out, the Milky Way is a third horizon. Lie on the rooftop daybed, cover with palm-wool, and wait. Twenty minutes: a shooting star. An hour: a dozen.
Dark-sky nights · Siwan oud sometimes arrives
The mirror · 20:45