Nile Corniche & Zamalek

The Nile Corniche is Cairo's river promenade — a continuous waterfront road running along both banks of the Nile through central Cairo that provides the only reliable open space and fresh air in a city of 20 million people. Walking the Corniche at sunset, when the feluccas (traditional sailing boats) drift on the water and the city's skyline softens in the golden light, is Cairo at its most liveable.

Zamalek, the northern half of Gezira Island in the middle of the Nile, is Cairo's most cosmopolitan neighbourhood — tree-lined streets of Art Deco apartment buildings, embassies, galleries, and the cafés and restaurants that serve Cairo's educated, multilingual elite. The neighbourhood feels more Parisian than Egyptian — a legacy of the Khedive Ismail's 19th-century ambition to make Cairo the 'Paris on the Nile.' The 26th of July Street, Zamalek's main commercial strip, is lined with bookshops, bakeries, and the kind of independent businesses that survive in a neighbourhood where cultural capital outweighs commercial pressure.

The Cairo Tower (Borg al-Qahira), a 187-metre lotus-shaped concrete tower built in 1961 with CIA money (a bribe that Egyptian president Nasser reportedly spent on the tower specifically to irritate the Americans), provides a 360-degree view from its revolving restaurant and observation deck. The view — the Nile winding north toward the delta, the pyramids on the western horizon, and the city spreading in every direction — is the definitive Cairo panorama.