Modern Cairo
consider Central Cairo to consist of the area
bordered by Old Cairo to the south,
Islamic Cairo to the east and the Nile
River to the west, but this covers a number of
different districts.
Two distinct cities, the new and the old,
make up Cairo. Modern Cairo faces
the Nile. Its wide avenues are lined with blocks
of modern apartment houses, skyscraper
office buildings, government buildings, theaters,
and smart shops. It extends eastward from the Nile
to the Place Ezbekieh, which adjoins the 20-acre
Ezbekieh Gardens. On the place stands the opera
house, built for the celebrations that attended
the completion of the Suez Canal. Here also stood
the first Shepherd's, a world-famous Swiss hotel
that catered to foreigners. Egyptian mobs
burned Shepherd's and destroyed many other
buildings when they rioted against the Europeans
in 1952. |
