The beauty of Egypt - Ismailiya

ISMAILIYA 's schizoid character is defined by the rail line that cuts across the city. South of the tracks lies the European-style garden city built for foreign employees of the Suez Canal Company, extending to the verdant banks of the Sweetwater Canal. Following careful restoration, its leafy boulevards and placid streets of colonial villas look almost as they must have done in the 1930s,

with bilingual street signs nourishing the illusion that the British empire has just popped indoors for cocktails.

North of the train tracks you move into another world of hastily constructed flats grafted onto long-standing slums , and a quarter financed by the Gulf Emirates that provides a cordon sanitaire for the wealthy suburb of Nemrah Setta (Number Six). This Janus-profile reflects the city's twentieth-century history , when two disparate sons of Ismailiya had a lasting effect on Egyptian society. Hassan el-Banna created the Muslim Brotherhood that was the bane of the British, and has vexed Egypt's rulers since independence. Two generations later, Ismailiya became synonymous with Osman Ahmed Osman , a self-made millionaire contractor whom Sadat appointed as Minister of Housing and Reconstruction in 1975. As Gulf investments poured into the Canal Zone, billboard-sized pictures of Osman began to outnumber those of his patron, who finally agreed to opposition demands for an audit. By the time it was discovered that millions had been stashed in Swiss banks, Osman had fled the country. Subsequent investigations into his political connections proved inconclusive and he is now back in business.

Ismailiya - the most Europeanized of Egyptian towns - was the birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood and its founder, Hassan el-Banna . As a child, El-Banna nailed up leaflets calling upon Muslims to renounce gold and silks, and awoke his neighbours before dawn prayers. When older he campaigned against female emancipation, delivering fiery sermons in rented cafés. He founded the Ikhwan el-Muslimeen in 1928 and within fifteen years the Brotherhood had spread throughout Egypt and spawned offshoots across the Middle East, articulating an Islamic response to modernization on Western terms.

Ismailiya is good for eating out . When the weather's fine, citizens dine alfresco near the fishing port on Lake Timsah; it's worth the cost of a taxi (£E2-3) out along Sharia Talatini to eat fish straight from the lake. You might even risk the local speciality, Umm el-Khaloul - a kind of shellfish that's best avoided during hot weather. Otherwise, there are several decent restaurants in the centre. The most popular drinking spots are King Edward and the bar at the Mercure Forsan Island, both of which attract an interesting crowd as the night wears on. Alternatively, most of the evening streetlife can be found around Sharia Talatini, Sharia Sa'ad Zaghloul and Sharia el-Geish, where shops, cafés and juice bars are open late into the night.

Should you happen to be here around Easter, Ismailiya is a good place to witness the spring festival of Shams el-Nessim , when families picnic in the park between the Sweetwater Canal and Lake Timsah, and a Flower Festival adds colour to the occasion.

Even better is the " Doll-Burning " or Limbo Festival , held a week later. Its curious title refers to a hated nineteenth-century local governor - Limbo Bey - effigies of whom were torched by the citizenry. Ever since then, it has been customary to burn dolls resembling one's pet hate: footballers are popular targets whenever Ismailiya's soccer club does poorly. The dolls are burned on the streets after dark.

Ismailiya's carefully restored old town is a pleasure to walk or bike around, shaded by pollarded trees. Most of the sights can be reached on foot within ten minutes, although a couple of places outside town warrant renting a bicycle in the backstreets off Mohammed Ali Quay, or catching a service taxi from the turn-off near Mallaha Park.

pleasant fifteen minutes' walk down the street from the De Lesseps House, the Ismailiya Museum (Sat-Thurs 9.30am-4pm, Fri and during Ramadan 9.30am-2pm; £E6) leans towards ancient history, devoting a section to the waterways of Ramses and Darius. The highlights of its collection of four thousand Greco-Roman and pharaonic artefacts is a lovely mosaic from the fourth century AD, depicting Phaedra, Dionysos, Eros and Hercules. Other sections cover the canal in modern history, the Battle of Ismailiya and the "Crossing" of October 1973.

With permission from the museum, one can also visit some plaques and obelisks from Ramses II's time, in the Garden of Steles down the road, past the guarded residence of the head of the Canal Authority. It's nicer to wander amid the 500 acres of exotic shrubs and trees of Mallaha Park , or stroll alongside the shady Sweetwater Canal that was dug to provide fresh water for labourers building the Suez Canal. Previously, supplies had to be brought across the desert by camels, or shipped across Lake Manzala to Port Said.