The Corniche is Alexandria's spine and its social heart, a broad seafront boulevard that runs in a great curve for more than fifteen kilometres from Qaitbay past downtown to Montaza. It is less a sight than the stage on which the city lives. In the evening families spread out along the sea wall, boys dive off the rocks, vendors sell grilled corn and termis (lupini beans) and freshly pressed sugarcane juice, and the whole promenade fills with people taking the breeze. Behind it stands a wall of weathered Italianate and Art Deco apartment blocks, survivors of the cosmopolitan city of the early twentieth century, when Greeks, Italians, and Levantines shared this seafront. The stretch around Raml Station and Saad Zaghloul Square is the liveliest, near the old Trianon and Delices cafes and the historic Cecil Hotel. A caleche (horse carriage) ride or a slow walk at dusk is how locals do it.
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