Things To Do In Cairo

Coffee and shisha

El Fishawy’s coffee shop in Khan El-Khalili serves coffee, mint tea, and Cola. Watch the world go by while smoking a shisha water pipe (try the “double apple” flavor). Excellent value for money.

Felucca

Along the Nile River, take a felucca ride. A fantastic way to unwind and spend a night beneath the Cairo sky. Feluccas are offered in Garden City just across from the Four Seasons Hotel. To hire your own boat, negotiate a reasonable price of no more than EGP20-30 for roughly a half hour, or EGP50 for an hour, regardless of the number of passengers. Pay for your ride afterward, or you may get much less than you bargained for. For EGP2, public boats with loud music and a laughing throng are also available for 1/2 hour, although they are quite uncomfortable.

Parks

There aren’t many parks in Cairo, although there are a few.

• The most well-known is the Giza Zoo, which is situated in Cairo’s Giza area, just in front of the entrance to the Four Seasons Hotel in Giza. This is really one of the world’s oldest zoos (it was built approximately 100 years ago).
• Hadiqat Al Orman (Al Orman Gardens). This is a pretty big park in the Giza area, near to the Giza Zoo, and it is accessible by purchasing a day ticket at the entrance. It has a variety of trees and flowers and is a wonderful area to get away from the city’s noise and traffic. However, it may be quite packed with locals, particularly on weekends and official holidays such as Eid, etc.
• Hadiqat Al Azbakiya (Al Azbakieya Gardens). Another lovely park to enjoy the beauty and splendor of trees and gardens while being inside the city limits. It is situated in Cairo’s Azbakiya neighborhood, and the easiest way to get there is to take a cab.
• Another park in Zamalek is Genenet El Asmak. It’s a beautiful park with numerous enormous tunnels with water tanks where you can observe various types of fish and aquatic life via glass windows. A very low-cost ticket allows you to enter and spend the day at the park, as it does at other parks. In English, Genene El Asmak translates to “Garden of the Fish.”
• Merryland, also known as Genenet El Merryland in Arabic, is situated in the Heliopolis area, near the Roxy Cinema. Another park with trees and gardens and great views, but in the past 5 years, a lot of restaurants and cafés have sprung up within the park, making it a site where people can eat, drink, and enjoy the park all at the same time.
• El Hadiqa El Dawliya, which translates to “The International Garden,” is situated in the Nasr City neighborhood. It is one of the most recently established parks, having been constructed as part of the Nasr City complex. It is another another park, with portions housing various replicas of renowned structures from throughout the globe. (Of course, the duplicates are considerably smaller and look like miniature sculptures that you may look at) (i.e. The Eiffel Tower of Paris, The Great Wall of China, The Windmills of Holland, etc.) It’s interesting to watch.
• Al-Azhar Park is undoubtedly Cairo’s newest and most recent park, complete with eateries and entertainment. It provides an excellent view of Islamic Cairo and the metropolitan skyline.

Recreation

Other relaxation options include visiting the Giza Zoo and the Cairo Botanical Gardens, or watching horse racing at the Gezira Club in Zamalek. If you need a break from the city, play a round of golf at the famous Mena House Golf Course overlooking the Pyramids, or the Hilton Pyramids Hotel tournament Golf Course and nearby Sixth Of October City, both of which are ten minutes drive from the Giza Pyramids.

If you and your family get tired of gazing at monuments and museums, a ten-minute ride by microbus, taxi, or vehicle from the Giza Pyramids will take you to two of Cairo’s largest and greatest amusement parks, Dream-park and Magic Land, both in adjacent Sixth Of October City.

The Mövenpick Hotel, where guests may see Egyptian TV and drama sets, as well as studios that house many of the Egyptian and other Arabic TV stations, is also part of The Media Production City complex.

Shopping

Egypt’s finest retail mall, Citystars, is equivalent to an international mall. It carries the majority of multinational brands and cuisine chains. It has a movie theater and an amusement park. The Mall of Arabia is a brand new, large retail mall in the 6 October City suburbs. It is Cairo’s second-largest retail mall, with many of the same American and European brands as Citystars.