Anthony Sattin on Cairo

Anthony Sattin on Cairo

05 May 2010

Speakers: Anthony Sattin

“White sails unfurled. Feluccas moved across the dark Nile. Traffic on the corniche roads was still light, and I could pick out individual sounds of people calling to one another, of a car’s horn, and then a woman singing.” Traveller and writer Anthony Sattin asks us to voyage with him as he explores a city very close to his own heart, to El-Kahira, “The Victorious”, Cairo. Beginning with a simple sound clip of one of Cairo’s bustling streets, Sattin immerses his audience in this mystical and oriental city.

Florence Nightingale described Cairo as “the rose of cities, garden of the desert, the pearl of the Moorish architecture, the fairest place of earth below”. But that Egyptian capital, booming with a population of 18 million, is now intense, packed, and wholly different. Sattin guides his listeners through an exploration of the city, focusing on the fantastically unknown Islamic quarter and its influences. Brimming with tombs and mosques, this once home of Saladin possesses a history which is rich and multifarious, host to a history which is as energetic and, in Sattin’s opinion, as under-experienced as the glorious city's architecture.