Cairo

Cairo is an enormous city on the Nile, and the only one where pyramids show up over the rooftops. The Great Pyramid of Giza is four and a half thousand years old and stayed the tallest building on earth for close to four millennia. Tutankhamun's gold now fills its own galleries at the Grand Egyptian Museum, built within sight of the plateau. Cairo is known as the city of a thousand minarets, and the old Islamic quarter shows why: Al-Azhar Mosque has been teaching for over a thousand years, and Al-Muizz Street lines up gates, fountains and madrasas along a single kilometre. In the alleys of Khan el-Khalili, copper and spices are haggled over between glasses of mint tea. Above it all, the Citadel of Saladin holds the high ground, crowned by the domes and thin minarets of the Mosque of Muhammad Ali. In the evening families fill Al-Azhar Park and the sun drops behind the skyline.