Egypt Guide
Cairo
Gezira
Gezira (literally "island") dominates the waterfront from Garden City to Bulaq, is three sets of bridges spanning the Nile. Nearly 4km long and 1km wide, the island is big enough to encompass two distinct zones. The southern half, featuring the Opera House complex, parks, a viewing tower and famous sporting clubs, is Gezira proper. Zamalek, further north, is pure real estate - apartments, villas, offices and embassies - with a Westernized ambience and nightlife. Both seem so integral to Cairo that it's hard to envisage their absence, yet the island itself only coalesced in the early 1800s and remained unstable until the first Aswan Dam regulated the Nile's flood in the 1900s.