For decades the name El Alamein meant one thing: the desert battle that turned the tide of the Second World War in North Africa. Today the same coast carries a startling double identity. West of Alexandria, the Mediterranean shelves into bands of turquoise and milk-jade so vivid they look retouched, and along that water Egypt has conjured a glittering summer playground — the stretch locals simply call the Sahel. Sombre war cemeteries and gleaming new marinas now share a single shoreline, and the contrast, rather than jarring, gives this place its peculiar gravity and glamour all at once.

The reckoning with history comes first. The El Alamein Commonwealth War Cemetery is the emotional centre — row upon row of pale headstones for the men of a dozen nations, immaculate against the desert. Nearby the El Alamein Military Museum lays out the campaign with tanks and field guns, while the soaring German War Memorial broods on its rise like a sandstone fortress. Then the mood turns: drive on to Sidi Abdel Rahman, where a perfect turquoise bay opens up, and to the white towers of New Alamein City and the yacht-lined Marassi Marina, the polished face of the new Riviera.

Out of season, in spring or early autumn, the resort crowds thin and the coast reveals a slower pleasure. Walk the empty sand at Sidi Abdel Rahman in the soft evening light, when the water cools to lavender and the only sound is the wind off the dunes that swallowed an entire army. Egyptians come here to swim and linger over long lunches of grilled fish, and the new city's cafés stay lit late. It is a strange, moving combination — a landscape of remembrance that has learned, gently, how to celebrate the living again.