A frenetically busy shopping street running in front of the Nile Hilton Hotel in Tahrir Square to Midan Opera, Qasr el-Nil is taken up almost exclusively with shop windows that display the brightest and gaudiest of goods.
The streets on either side of Sharia Qasr el-Nil traditionally constituted Cairo’s financial district. At the junction with Sharia ash-Sharif is the National Bank of Egypt building.
Here, too, is the Bourse, or stock exchange, which is enjoying a new lease of life since the government undertook a programme of privatization in the late 1990s.
The boom in trading was reflected in a renovation programme that covered a huge 60,000-sqm (645,000-sq ft) section of downtown Cairo. The area around the Bourse has been pedestrianized and many of the roads are now paved.
These walkways are also furnished with 19th-century-style lamp posts, along with flower beds, greenery, and palm trees. Some of the buildings in this area have also been renovated, including the lovely Trieste Insurance Building on the corner with Sharia Sherif.
This was designed by the Italian architect Antonio Lascaic (1856-1946), who was responsible for many of central Cairo’s most beautiful Belle Epoque buildings.
Sharia Qasr el-Nil crosses over Midan Mustafa Kamel, named after the founder of the Egyptian Nationalist Party, formed in 1907. Kamel was an early opponent of British occupation and his statue looks out over the square.
Sharia Qasr el-Nil continues past some jewelers’ shops and a few outlets selling street signs (you can have your name put on one) to emerge on Sharia al-Gumhuriyya. This leads into Midan Opera, which was once one of Cairo’s grandest squares but is now occupied by a vast car park and the derelict Continental-Savoy hotel.
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