Cairo

Cairo has been the biggest city in Africa for most of a thousand years and carries it loudly and well: fourteen centuries of minarets — the skyline they call the city of a thousand towers — stacked over pharaonic stones recycled into medieval gates, all of it leaning on the Nile, which slides through the middle as calm as if it had not invented the whole arrangement. And at the western edge, where the streets stop, the pyramids stand exactly as advertised: bigger, older and more patient than everything that came after.

The sensible traveller takes Giza at opening — the plateau before the heat, the Sphinx from the proper angle, the paid interior climb once in a life —; gives the museum its half day for Tutankhamun's gold and the faces of people four thousand years gone; walks Islamic Cairo from Bab Zuweila to the Citadel, minaret by minaret; haggles in Khan el-Khalili as theater, not war; and ends on a felucca at sunset, when the river forgives the traffic and the city turns to silhouette.

The Guide's honesty: the pyramids come with company — camel offers, 'official' guides, shortcuts: a firm, smiling la shukran works a hundred times a day —; agree taxi fares before the wheels move, or use the apps; the museum's best rooms deserve slow feet, the rest a stride; baksheesh is a custom, not a scam — small notes ready —; and Cairo's traffic is a natural wonder in its own category: cross with a local, at their pace, exactly in their footsteps.