In an antique land
OLD Cairo has a new face, one that visitors and inhabitants alike will soon be enjoying to the full. The neighbourhood's residents are rightly proud of the newly painted façades, the wood balconies and awnings, and the refurbished shops exhibiting the best of local craftsmanship. No longer will busloads of tourists pick their way through rubble on their tours of the holy sites, looking askance at the unkempt streets and crumbling dwellings. These have been replaced by cobbled pedestrian alleys and large tidy avenues bordered with trees. Soon, too, the market will be jam-packed with vendors boasting their wares, housewives shopping for the evening meal, and tourists buying souvenirs before settling in an open-air café. The elements added by the restoration team are always in harmony with the spirit of the place: resolutely harmonious, they also determinedly avoid quaint pseudo-authenticity. The complete restoration of Old Cairo is incontestable proof that a quarter can be upgraded without causing terminal harm to its occupants and that, with a little understanding and imagination, everyone can have cake and eat it too.
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