Fodor's Expert Review Bab Zuweila

The last remaining southern gate of Fatimid Cairo was built in 1092 and is named after members of the Fatimid army who hailed from a North African Berber tribe called the Zuwayla. The gate features a pair of minaret-topped semicircular towers. The lobed-arch decoration on the inner flanks of the towers in the entrance were used earlier in North African architecture and were introduced here following the Fatimid conquest of Egypt. They are seen in later Fatimid and Mamluk buildings.

The street level here has risen dramatically—what you see as you pass through the massive doorway would have been at eye level for a traveler entering the city on a camel. According to the architectural historian K.A.C. Creswell, the loggia between the two towers on the wall's exterior once housed an orchestra that announced royal comings and goings. The views from the towers themselves are some of the best in Cairo.

Bab Zuweila wasn't always such a lighthearted spot, however. Public executions once took place here. Indeed, the conquering Turks hanged the last independent Mamluk sultan, Tuman bay II, from this gate in 1517. The unlucky man's agony was prolonged because the rope broke three times. Finally, fed up, the Ottomans had him beheaded.