“ This little world, the great Cairo, the most admirable and the greatest city seen upon the earth…The Microcosmos of the greater world…”
William Lithgow, 1614
Cairo, “Al Qahira", is Egypt's capital, the largest city in Africa and home to 18 million people of the Nile Valley, the Delta, and the deserts, as well as foreign businessmen, scholars, and refugees, a true melting pot of different cultures. Cairo extends for over 35 kilometers along the eastern bank of the Nile, the historical stage of many sensational events. Built and rebuilt over a thousand years, Cairo is a galaxy of movement and light at night and by day, overwhelming with its size, sounds and colours.
No matter how many times you visit Cairo, it will never seem enough. “Humanity” is its basic feature, no matter how chaotic, noisy, and unpredictable it may seem to some. But despite shortcomings, Cairo does still retain the qualities of the “Mother of the World” and a visit to Cairo is rather a life defining experience, that either leaves you provoked or “in love" , but can never leave you indifferent.A history of four and half thousand years has left their marks on this city and the people, where technology and monuments exist side by side. It’s possible to move from the medieval to Islamic Cairo to the Pharaonic monuments at the Museum and then take your lunch in a French Restaurant without having to move out of Cairo.
A part from being a meeting point between Arab and European cultures, Cairo, is still the sophisticated metropolitan that gave the world a Nobel prize winner, Naguib Mahfouz, and the world’s oldest functioning university, Al Azhar Timelessness is what Cairo is all about and time is what it needs to be given, in order for it to reveal just a part of its secrets.
