I flew down to CAI from LHR last night, on a fully loaded BA 777. I was in Club and had tried to upgrade to F, thinking that there probably aren't enough tourists to fill up a BA 777 every day with the all the bad reports in the media, but I was wrong. Or maybe it was all media people on the plane? BA served a nice chicken tangine which I had with an equally nice Pouilly-Fum� and I relaxed, read and slept a bit on this short 4 hour flight.

I arrived just before midnight and had a hotel car waiting from the Intercontinental Semiramis. They told me it would be a Mercedes, but it turned out to be a Pontiac. Anyhow it sped me directly to the hotel as there wasn't much activity on the street at that hour. When I was checking in, the guy next to me was from a Libyan TV station so I guess there are a lot of media people at my hotel, probably because it is the closest to Tahrir. I was upgraded to a King Club room with free mini-bar of course and found a nice fruit and dessert tray in my room. I have a balcony overlooking the Nile which is nice. I had some Egyptian wine from the mini-bar and went to sleep.

The next day, having slept most of the morning, I wandered over to the Museum. I've been several times, but there is always more to see. It's such a huge and amazing place. Afterwards I walked over to Tahrir square. People told me not to go as it is dangerous, but I always ignore such advice, especially when I can see people from all walks of life walking around the square. There is a major Metro station right there for goodness sake. What I found was a kind of a tent village set up with protest signs and a lot of kids running around acting crazy. But it was more like an Arabic Lollapalooza than a protest site. It was a scene. A happening.





Later I walked to the Sofitel, Four Seasons and Kempinski looking, in vain, for a bar that had the Manchester Derby on TV. Lots of people were out on the streets as usual, but almost none were tourists. The museum had some tourists, but I had never seen it so empty. It's a shame that the country is suffering from lack of tourists due to the bad PR. But good for the few that are here as we pretty much have the place to ourselves.

I don't see much activity on the square right now, at 6pm. We'll see how it goes over the next few days. But my guess is this isn't going to be anything like Arab Spring. More of a fizzle than a bang.

Thanks! This is better than live coverage on TV. No sensationalism, just honest impressions on-site. FT is great.

Hi, and "Welcome to Egypt", as I'm sure you've heard many times by now.
You only had to walk (or taxi) down to Maadi (admittedly a jaunt) for the Manchester derby. BCA had it on (I think). As a matter of fact so did I...

If only I knew. I asked the concierge who told me there was a sports cafe a 15 minute taxi ride away. But I looked outside and saw the very heavy traffic. No cars moving due to Tahrir Sq. being closed off.

I was there in May 2011, after the first revolution of January 25, 2011. Aside from some graffiti, the square was mostly empty.




I had the same advice - don't go, it's dangerous. I do believe hotel staff provide this advice out of the abundance of caution. I think that the realities are, unless you are in the middle of Friday Protest day or caught up amid a spontaneous protest, you should be okay.