Narrow medieval streets run from a stone city gate past Mamluk mosques to a covered textile market.
What Al-Darb al-Ahmar looks like
still crosses the old street at its southern end, a stone gate whose two towers carry the twin minarets of the mosque built beside it. The paved road running south from the gate is narrow and walled in stone on both sides. It climbs gently toward the Citadel past carved mosque fronts and sabils.
The runs off the gate itself under a two storey roof of shuttered workshop fronts, with living quarters built over the shops, dating from the 1600s. Rolls of appliqued fabric hang in the doorways and lean against the stone piers below them.
The , known locally as the Blue Mosque, stands farther down Bab el-Wazir Street in carved stone. Blue and green tilework from a 1650s restoration covers its dome and walls.
Just inside the gate, the opens onto a stone courtyard with pointed arches on marble columns. The , a few steps along, has its own courtyard arcaded around a central fountain pavilion.
Away from the two main thoroughfares, side streets narrow further, worn stone paving broken by patches of asphalt under upper floors of carved stone and plain rendered walls meeting directly over the alley. Shop awnings and hanging stock crowd some passages at head height.
Shot in Al-Darb al-Ahmar
The street's only documented screen credit is a nonfiction one. The Tentmakers of Cairo spent nearly three years filming the applique workshops along this stretch, through the upheaval of Egypt's 2011 revolution and its aftermath.
The Tentmakers of Cairo, 2015
The Street of the Tentmakers
The Tentmakers of Cairo, a 2015 documentary, was shot inside this covered market during Egypt's 2011 to 2014 political upheaval. It follows the applique makers who work its stalls, so the market and its tentmakers were filmed as they actually are, not dressed for another story. Street View
What Al-Darb al-Ahmar can double for
Talaa Kebira in Fes, Morocco
Talaa Kebira runs through Fes el Bali as a narrow covered market street lined with two storey workshop fronts, the closest surviving parallel to a Mamluk era covered souk street outside Cairo. Leather and metal stalls spill into the passage the way fabric rolls do on the Street of the Tentmakers. Moroccan zellige tilework and keyhole arches are a different colour and pattern from Cairo's striped ablaq stone, and satellite dishes above the rooflines need dressing out. Try searching covered medieval souk street now.
Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem
Via Dolorosa climbs through the Old City's Muslim Quarter between stacked stone shopfronts and vaulted passages built up over Mamluk and Ottoman construction, the same kind of layered stonework that runs south from Bab Zuweila. Arched structures cross overhead at several points, covering the street much the way the tentmakers' market is covered in Cairo. Jerusalem's limestone is paler and more uniform than Cairo's mixed ablaq striping, and the crowds of pilgrims along Via Dolorosa would need clearing for a period frame. Try searching vaulted stone market street now.
Mdina in Malta
Mdina's lanes run behind the Main Gate at a walled, stone built scale close to Bab Zuweila and the street running off it. Each old quarter is entered through a single gatehouse, and the honey coloured limestone is warmer than Cairo's grey white masonry but holds the same narrow proportions. Mdina's limestone is markedly paler and more uniform than Cairo's mixed stone, and its Baroque balconies and iron lanterns would need removing for anything earlier than the 18th century. Try searching walled stone gate street now.
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