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Cairo · Qarafa, Islamic Cairo
The City of the Dead
A necropolis kilometres long where people have lived among the tombs for centuries.
€ BudgetOff the beaten track
At the foot of the Citadel, the Qarafa lines up Mamluk mausoleums, carved domes and whole streets where families live inside the funerary enclosures. It is neither an abandoned cemetery nor an ordinary district: it is both at once, and one of Cairo's most disorienting places.
The extra bit
In the morning and with a local guide: you are visiting a place of life and mourning, not a set.
Know before you go
Do not photograph residents or the inside of enclosures without asking. Part of the district has been demolished for a road: what you see today is no longer what ten-year-old guidebooks describe.
