Gayer-Anderson Museum

The museum is two sixteenth and seventeenth-century houses knocked together, saved from demolition and leased in the 1930s to John Gayer-Anderson, a British army doctor who filled them with furniture, carpets, ceramics and Pharaonic pieces and then left the whole arrangement to Egypt when he departed in 1942. That is what makes it unusual: it is not a collection displayed in a house but a house presented as one man arranged it, with a Persian room, a Damascus room lined with lacquered panels, a Byzantine room and a reception hall with a marble fountain under a high painted ceiling. The mashrabiya screens above the hall let the women of the household watch guests unseen, and the roof terrace looks straight across at the spiral minaret next door. Parts of a Bond film were shot here in 1977.

What you actually see

• The reception hall - marble fountain, painted ceiling and mashrabiya galleries.
• The Damascus room - lacquered and gilded panelling brought from Syria.
• The roof terrace - level with the spiral minaret of Ibn Tulun.
• A collector's arrangement kept intact - the house as it was left in 1942.

When to go

October to April. Mornings are quiet. Allow one to two hours and combine it with the mosque it leans against, which shares the same block. The house is cool inside even in warm weather thanks to its screens and courtyards.

Honest expectations

Rooms are small and a tour group fills them instantly. Stairs are steep and there is no lift. Some rooms are roped off. The Pharaonic pieces are a private collector's mixture rather than a curated display, and labelling is minimal.

Nearby

The Ibn Tulun mosque shares a wall; Sultan Hassan and the Citadel are east.