Review: All about Cairo

And now for something altogether different: a blog about Cairo, the Egyptian Capital, or al-Qāhirah as it is called in Arabic (or so I’ve been told). The Cairo page has very in-depth stories about the city, its politics, its traffic, its people and its customs. Although this page does not have a hot design, the page is certainly very worthwhile if you want to visit Egypt, and even more if you go to Egypt or Cairo for some other purpose than tourism. I had a good time reading the articles, especially because I spent some time in Mexico City, and some things Lady (the author) writes about are very recognizable for any huge city (Cairo has over 15 million inhabitants in its metro-area). I reward the All about Cairo page with 74 Bricks, which builds it a Triumphal Arch, with the promise that when the design is improved, a Memorial Pyramid is in reach, something the owner of a page with this topic should be looking forward too :-)
Looks and functionality (9 Bricks)
One thing is for sure, when visiting this page there is not going to be confusion about the topic of the page. First of all it is called All About Cairo, which is quite clear I think. Also the subject line under the title says this, so no confusion there.
I once again think that it would be good to use some descriptive graphic in the title bar. For example some small picture from something Cairo-ish (but not the Egyptian pyramids of course).
Secondly, I read in the very first post of the page (dating from April 2007), a very nice introduction to Cairo for people who only think about pyramids and sphinxes when thinking of Egypt. I would recommend to place a link in the top of the side bar saying something like Introduction. This link would just lead to the specific page Blogger made for this introduction post.

Content (55 Bricks)
The content on this blog is very valuable for anyone thinking about going to Cairo or Egypt. The good thing is that the bog is written by someone who lives in the city daily, so it is a very good introduction to the city, with information and insights that would be difficult to find without this All About Cairo page.
Furthermore, the entries are written very well, and Lady does not only give us information about Cairo, but also his educated opinion about many things going on in that city. Combined with nicely critical post about for example the service level in shops or the lack of proper toilet paper, this website is a delight to read for me, even if I am not going to visit the city any time soon.
The articles are also highly original, as the author writes about his thoughts, what he sees in the city, and about things that are in the news and his opinion about this.
All about Cairo is updated about every three or four days, although there were much less posts written in May.

Extras (9 Bricks)
All about Cairo offers a couple nice extras, such as news-roll with relevant news about Egypt. Also on the site is collection of Youtube music videos with the nice headline “listen to some nice music while you read….”

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