L. Miller Minutes

Someday back in March when looking for a calm place to relax out of direct sunlight and outside of the usual coffee shop, we found a park via a quick Google Map search of “parks” in Makkah. We pinched and zoomed and located a promising one that looked to be in an area we were familiar with, despite never noticing it before when passing by. On the map, it was labeled “Rose Garden” with some reviews stating it was a nice park, so we decided to go.

The park is tucked in Az-Zahra District on Al Sarraa Street, and even though it is approximately a football field’s length away from the bustling Rusayfah Street (also known as Highway 80, a major a route passing through Makkah from Jeddah on the Red Sea to Dammam on the Persian Gulf), the park is a quiet, shady, green patch in the otherwise sunny, traffic filled city. Older three and four story homes surround the park secluding it, and small lanes branch off from the park deeper into the neighborhood.

The park has three main parts: a southernly third with a dried fountain in the shape of a rose and stem where water once flowed over the pedals into a pool with roughly 6 surrounding benches, each with rose bushes (or what seem to be bushes with pinkish flowers on them) surrounding the benches; a middle third (our favorite section) made up of a maintained grass lawn with large date palm trees providing cover from the sun and home to song birds, roaming cats, pigeon flocks, and 8 surrounding benches; and a final third with a playground carpeted with artificial turf with swing sets and monkey bars, and a few benches for spectating parents.

We’ve found the best time to go to the park, especially during Ramadan, is from Asr to approximately a half hour before Maghrib. During this time, the sun is no longer as blistering and the winds tend to pickup to add additional cool air. And also during this time, the park is relatively empty, with a few people reading, cats loafing around for a late afternoon nap, and a few children kicking a soccer ball in makeshift goals on the playground.

Overall the Rose Garden is a great place to read, enjoy the shade, people and cat watch, and think. All photos unless otherwise labeled were taken with my Olympus OM-D E-M10 and kit M. Zuiko 14-42mm across multiple days during March and April 2024.

Cheers.