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Rommel's Cave Museum
Erwin Rommel and the North African campaign, in a Roman-era rock-cut cave
About
The museum preserves the cave and personal belongings of Field Marshal Rommel as a record of the Second World War on Egypt's coast.
The Rommel's Cave Museum occupies a natural rock-cut cave on a peninsula about 3 km east of Marsa Matruh's centre, originally used in the Roman period to store grain and water for the port of Paraetonium. During the Second World War Field Marshal Erwin Rommel used it as a headquarters. It opened as a museum in 1977 on the initiative of the Egyptian government with support from West Germany, when Rommel's son Manfred donated his father's personal belongings, including his leather coat, compass and maps. Transferred to the Supreme Council of Antiquities in 1999, it reopened in August 2017 after restoration of the cave.
Why this museum matters
Exhibo editorial
A rock peninsula at the northern tip of Marsa Matruh's harbour, above a beach that also bears his name. The cave was cut in Roman times as a store for grain and water at the port of Paraetonium; in 1942 Erwin Rommel used it as a headquarters. In 1977 it became a museum, opened with West German support, and his son Manfred — then mayor of Stuttgart — gave his father's belongings: the leather coat, a compass, annotated maps. Reopened in 2017 after the cave was stabilised. Small, strange and a little uneasy, as war memory should be: the Desert Fox's coat in a Roman granary, on a bay where families now swim.
Visit
Hours, tickets, and directions for Rommel's Cave Museum.
Address
Rommel Peninsula, Marsa Matruh, Matrouh Governorate, Egypt
Opening hours
- Monday
- 09:00 – 15:00
- Tuesday
- 09:00 – 15:00
- Wednesday
- 09:00 – 15:00
- Thursday
- 09:00 – 15:00
- Friday
- 09:00 – 15:00
- Saturday
- 09:00 – 15:00
- Sunday
- 09:00 – 15:00