The church of Saint Samaan is beautiful and any visit to it will be a moving one. The huge cave that holds the church has been carved out of the Moqattam hills that overlook Cairo on the eastern edge of the city.
Moqattam is home to a large Coptic Christian community who collect the city’s rubbish and sort it by hand for recycling. There are various charity projects running in the area to help this marginalised community make a fair living. The Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE) is one of them, and they can organise visits into the area to see the church and their workshops where they produce recycled paper and cloth goods.

www.garbagedreams.com/
www.ape.org.eg/
cavechurch.com/home/index.asp

* Alip is our Been there local for Cairo. Her page is here: www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/articles/cairo-local-alice-allsop.jsp and you can follow her tips directly here: www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/travellers/alip

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The tentmakers market in Cairo is famed as the last roofed souq in the city, but it is so much more than that.

Walk slowly along the street and allow your eyes to pause inside each doorway. You will see each booth is adorned with beautiful hand-sewn furnishings which range in size from huga wall hangings to cushion covers. Some show donkeys, birds or fish (or the obligatory pyramid and camel/sphinx scene), but most are geometric designs or stunning stylised calligraphy. In many of the shops you will also find men sewing these intricate designs while they wait to welcome their next customer, whether they are buying or browsing.

Less than half the shops here sell tents now, but these are easy to spot as they have miniature versions of their tents out on display on the street. They seem to come in all different shapes and sizes but all beautifully decorated with the brightly coloured and patterned "Ramadan" material that you can also buy by the meter here. Make sure that you take a left through a passage way just a few meters before the roofed area ends, as this will take you into a large courtyard where the largest tents are erected and shown.

The model tents are perfect presents for kids, especially as they come with a camel toy, but if you have space in your luggage you can really treat them with their own 1m square Bedouin tent that comes with light wooden poles. Grown ups with a lot of luggage space and a large garden might even buy the full-size version!

A significant part of the fun of visiting the tentmakers market is the walk there from Midan Hussein. It's just so refreshing to be able to leave the tourist hub-bub behind and explore "real" Egypt. As you get further from the Khan El Khalili the shops are selling less tourist souvenirs, you get less hassle from the sellers and you start to see the city and its wonderful people.

The tent maker's market is in Cairo on Al Khayamiyya, just South of Bab Zuweila and the cross roads with Ahmad Mahir Pasha.
It is about 15 minutes walk from Midan Hussein (where the Khan El Khalili tourist market is). From the tourist market cross the main road (Al Azar) using either the underpass near the main square or the footbridge a little further down. At the base of the footbridge on the south side of the Al Azhar road you will find a pedestrianised street which is covered by a high wooden roof for about 30m between two mosques. Walk down this street and through the local clothing market. Keep going and you will get to Bab Zuweila which was once the gate to the Old City. Once you pass through Bab Zuweila you will find the roofed tent makers market straight ahead.

Google map: tinyurl.com/33o3lkc

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On a visit to Cairo, as well as the usual tourist places, take a trip to Heliopolis, a suburb to the north-east of the city. It was built in the early 20th Century by a Belgian and hence has some fantastic European-style architecture (and his own palace, which is a wonderful Taj Mahal-esque structure). Within the district is the centre of Heliopolis, El Korba, whose Bagdhad Street has some amazing colonnade type arches running along in front of the shops; you could almost be in Venice's St Mark's Square! (or somewhere similar..)

Helipolis has a large, wealthy Christian community of a range of different denominations, something you will notice by the proliferation of churches there. It has a nice feel to it with a number of cafes, bars and one of the British club's branches is here. One of the two British Council offices is also in Heliopolis which means there is a small-ish community of British teachers in the area too.

Pop up there and spend half a day especially if you're interested in architecture, churches and an alternative tourist experience. The Presidential Palace and a number of official government buildings are in Heliopolis as well, should you be interested in that.

Just mention Heliopolis (Arabic: Masr Gadida) to any taxi driver, they will know it. It should take about 20 mins from Downtown, much longer at busy times.

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This is a bookbinders with elegant, great-value products covered in wonderful marbled paper - wastepaper bins, magazine/newspaper boxes, photograph albums and notebooks, tissue boxes. A refined shop, nowhere near as expensive as it looks. The magazine/paper tidies (I had two) are just the best things I have bought on my travels anywhere.

31, El-Sheikh Mohamed Abdou St
(at the side of Al-Azhar Mosque)

www.abdelzaherbinding.com

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Sultan Hassan Mosque is an amazing piece of Mamluk architecture and a must for anybody visiting Cairo. Bab al-Shariah is a place I visited with my friend's family. Native Egyptians live and work there amid the hustle and bustle and there are all kinds of shops with merchandise at affordable prices.

Sultan Hasan Mosque is near the citadel. Bab al-Shariah is near the Al-Azhar and Al-Hussein mosques

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Walk into Lehnert and Landrock, a little book shop close to the Greek Club, and in the back you will find a small room filled with late 19th century, early 20th century era black-and-white pictures of scenes in Egypt and across North Africa taken by a couple Europeans of the name of the book shop. Great place for souvenirs.

Lehnert and Landrock is on the western side of Sherif Street close to the intersection with July 26 street.

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Definitely check out the mosque and university of Al Azhar. Al Azhar is the oldest Islamic university of the Islamic world, and a beautiful building.

The market of Khan Khalili is great to visit, but closed certain days, so try and find out when. It's got lots of different things; be sure not to get cornered by sales people. If you wander far beyond the main strip, you'll find a local Cairene food market and its fascinating to walk through it, really lots of fun.

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Best bookshop for English-language books in Cairo. They have loads of material including academic books. When you've finished browsing pop into Maison Thomas nearby for a great sandwich.

159, 26 July St, Zamalek

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The biggest shopping mall in the Middle-East, it has nearly everything you want, best of Egyptian manufacturers and the international ones

Madinet Nasr (Nasr city) , just tell the taxi driver City stars

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Best Egyptian cotton. For cotton clothes, try Mobaco.

248 Sudan Street, Mohaneessine, Guiza; Tel: 347 37 91; www.mobaco.com/

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