This year, we booked a photography course with Denis Dailleux, a French photographer known for his emotional and atmospheric portraits of people in Egypt. It goes without saying that Egypt is renowned for its several-thousand-year-old history, its pyramids, and the seaside resorts on the Red Sea that are well-known to many tourists. However, we didn't go to any of those places.

Instead, Denis took us to parts of Cairo rarely seen by tourists. We visited the bustling Khan el Khalili market, located between Attaba and the historic Al Gamalia district, walked through the old Bab El Nasr city gate to the cemetery. A bit further south lie El Megharbelin and El Serougeyya, places where primarily food, dead or alive, is sold. Although remarkable, the visit to the 'Zabbaleen', the garbage collectors in the Mokattam area of Cairo, was rather challenging to endure. To recover from this, the next day we simply took a walk along the Nile and enjoyed a nighttime boat trip. The concluding visit to the grand Ibn Tulun Mosque and the surrounding neighbourhood was impressive.