Downtown, easier to navigate

Downtown Cairo koshari institution running since 1950

Egypt's national opera house, a 1988 gift from Japan

Cairo's original antiquities museum, on Tahrir Square since 1902

A Parisian-style salon de thé tucked behind the Cairo Marriott in Zamalek

A Mamluk-era lake turned 1872 Khedivial park at Cairo's cultural heart

A 74-acre park built over a centuries-old rubble mound in medieval Cairo

A downtown coffeehouse open since the 1930s, serving Stella beer alongside backgammon

A small budget hotel just off Falaky Square in Downtown Cairo

An 1867 khedival garden of caves and grottoes, its fish tanks long empty

Egypt's first regional shopping mall, opened in 2000 on the Nile Corniche

Art deco cathedral, seat of Egypt's Armenian Catholic diocese

Lebanese garden dining inside the Nile Ritz-Carlton, facing the Egyptian Museum

A Downtown pasta and fast-food counter off Talaat Harb Street

The 1794 mansion that sheltered Napoleon's scientists in Cairo

A five-story Ottoman merchant house on Cairo's Darb al-Asfar

A Mamluk emir's 14th-century palace on Cairo's medieval Muizz Street

A moored restaurant boat off Zamalek with several dining rooms under one deck

A downtown hostel with a guest library and neighbourhood tips from the front desk

A small hotel a few steps off Talaat Harb Square

A rooftop hostel on the 15th floor of a Ramses Street tower

A 1920s belle-époque hotel in Downtown Cairo's Stock Exchange district

A rooftop backpacker hostel styled after a Sinai beach camp

A Khan el-Khalili coffeehouse run by the same family since the 1790s

The 19th-century square that became the epicenter of Egypt's 2011 revolution

A 2004 Garden City tower with Nile, Citadel and pyramid views

A long-running backpacker hostel across from Egypt's central bank

Two 16th-17th century Cairo houses filled with a British collector's furnishings

The art deco Talaat Harb Square cafe founded by Swiss chocolatier Giacomo Groppi

Hilton's all-suite residence tower on Zamalek island, on the Nile

A 1980s Nile tower on the site of the 1907 Semiramis

A Kempinski on the Nile in Garden City, designed by Pierre-Yves Rochon

The koshary shop that fed Tahrir Square's 2011 protesters

A Downtown Cairo bakery-café on Qasr El Nil Street near Tahrir Square

A 1941 Downtown beer garden once packed before Umm Kulthum's shows

A downtown hostel on Bank Misr Street near Tahrir

Egypt's leading collection of French Impressionist painting, in a 1915 Giza villa

Sculptures by the father of modern Egyptian art, in a museum built for him on Gezira

A prince's eclectic Nile-island palace mixing Ottoman, Persian, and Art Nouveau styles

One of the world's largest Islamic art collections, rebuilt after a 2014 bombing

Islamic ceramics from three continents, inside a 1921 Zamalek palace

A permanently moored Nile boat holding five separate restaurants

Ottoman-era Turkish dining inside the Kempinski Nile Hotel

A Dokki tower two Metro stops from Tahrir with Nile or city views

A 1933 Nile bridge guarded by four bronze lions meant for Giza Zoo

A 1981 Nile Corniche tower with a pyramid-view observation deck

The Ramses Hilton's commercial annex, one of downtown Cairo's earliest shopping malls

Pharaonic-style tomb of Egypt's 1919 revolution leader

Cairo's most storied hotel, shut since 2014 and under restoration

A Nile-front Sofitel tower beside Cairo's World Trade Centre in Bulaq

A riverside tower at the tip of Gezira Island in Zamalek

A sidewalk kitchen near Qasr El Aini with a changing daily Egyptian menu

The original Garden City home of Cairo's best-known Lebanese restaurant

Royal carriages of Egypt's ruling dynasty, including Napoleon III's gift to Khedive Ismail

A Talaat Harb branch of Cairo's popular koshary and oriental food chain

A small hotel on Talaat Harb Street in Downtown Cairo

A 1930s hotel building on Al-Gomhouria Street in Downtown Cairo

A Mamluk-era courtyard house in Islamic Cairo, now a historic café