Cairo for The Curious Wanderers: a Friday-to-Monday weekend
Pyramids at the edge, a thousand minarets in between.
No theme, just the city at its best. The sights that earn their reputation, a workshop or a market, one strange place nobody told you about, and dinner where the food is the point.
Friday: Bazaar and a bench
- Khan el-Khalili
Slip off the main drag into the back lanes of the metalworkers and brass-beaters; ask before taking photographs.
- Tanoura show at Wekalet El Ghouri
Sufi spinning in a restored caravanserai, free and loud, with a drum section and musicians in the gallery.
- El Fishawy
Tea and shisha in a café in the same family since 1773; dusty mirrors and a table in the lane.
Saturday: The classic pyramids, then a strange place
- Giza Pyramids Plateau
Walk the whole plateau, from Khufu's pyramid to Menkaure's smaller one, and see the Sphinx's left side that most coach tours miss.
- Andrea Mariouteya
Lunch under a vine pergola in the garden restaurant by the canal: a bread basket, fried cheese, a tagine and lemonade.
- Cave Church of Saint Simon
Visit the Coptic cave church in the Mokattam rock, an amphitheatre for 20,000 in the quarter of the city's rubbish collectors; go respectfully.
Sunday: Workshop and museum
- Gayer-Anderson Museum
A seventeenth-century house stitched to the Ibn Tulun mosque, furnished by a British collector; a Bond film was shot on the roof terrace.
- Museum of Islamic Art
Mamluk lamps, Fatimid ceramics and astrolabes in a reopened collection; the calligraphy rooms are a quiet hour.
- Abou El Sid
Dinner in the red-lit rooms of the Zamalek townhouse: molokhia, stuffed pigeon, and a glass of karkadeh.
Monday: Beyond the guidebook
- Hanging Church
The Hanging Church is a short walk from a Roman fortress and the Ben Ezra synagogue; plenty of corners few tourists reach.
- Gad
Lunch on koshary or a falafel sandwich at the Downtown chain where office workers queue at lunch.