For 500 years Carienes tipped their garbage over the city walls creating a massive mound that eventually overshadowed the crumbling fortifications. That accumulation of debris has now been transformed into a recreational space and much-needed green lung.

The 30-million-dollar park, opened in 2005, stretches from just east of the Al-Azhar Mosque down toward the Citadel. It follows the line of the old Ayyubid walls, built by the warrior sultan Saladin in the twelfth century. While all around is dusty and dry, the park is dazzlingly green with well-watered lawns, grassy knolls, orchards, and flower beds.

At the park’s north end stands an impressive complex designed to emulate Cairo’s grand Fatimid and Mamluk monuments. It houses the superb Citadel View restaurant, which boasts an open-air terrace overlooking the park, and an equally fine café that is house on the upper floor in a lofty, cushion-strewn salon open to the elements. The park’s western edge is delineated by the old walls, which were actually unearthed from centuries of compacted debris as part of the project. The park will also prove a catalyst for the renovation of the adjacent neighbourhoods of Islamic Cairo.