Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Shopping in Egypt

Visiting Egypt does not necessarily mean visiting tourist sites and buying typical monuments specially made for tourists.

Shopping at Egypt can become an adventure; you can go chic and sophisticated urbanized shopping, at malls and designer brand shops, if your stay in Egypt is long enough then you may want to know were you can buy a jeans a hip shirt, a top or just a made in Paris perfume you may also have thirst and need to satisfy the cultural artistic intellectual side in you, as well as knowing where you can by a book, CD or just enjoy some great artwork.

In that case I would recommend that you consider finding out about art galleries, book stores especially if you speak or have a special interest in Arabic language, also a music CD with Egyptian rhythms so that you'll always have the facility of taking a mind journey back to Egypt when you are back at home, Egyptian tunes could be the perfect soundtrack for this moment.

Some of the art galleries I would recommend would be Zamalek Art Gallery specializes in the promotion of Contemporary Art...Where it hosts a series of monthly exhibitions for the most prominent and exclusive artists. The Gallery houses a permanent collection for pioneer Egyptian artists, as well as for promising young talents. It is located in the heart of Zamalek, the cosmopolitan quarter of the capital, where most of the cultural events take place... A 200- square- meter of exhibiting area, one of the most spacious private galleries in Cairo. In this Art gallery you will find a selection of art works by known and unknown artists, but what is clearly obvious that all the displayed work is done by extremely talented artists.





Diwan Bookstore in Zamalek too, it opened its doors in 2002 as the first American-style bookstore in Egypt. Building on Cairo's growing concept of modern leisure, the shop sells books, music CDs, videos and DVDs in a concentric layout centered on a small coffee shop. Diwan stocks an impressive selection of titles in English, Arabic and French, covering fiction, classics, political science, Arabic novels in English translation and children's books. The obligatory Egypt section includes some very nice coffee-table books, tourist guides and maps.





As for visual media, American movies as well as classic Arabic films are for sale, and an equivalent spread of music is available on both CD and cassette. Educational CD-ROMs occupy another niche, attracting parents and repelling their children, these include encyclopedias and compute program tutorials. Magazines, comic books and a wide variety of small items fill in the gaps, made up mostly of Diwan brand stationary, cards, candles and pencils that clearly have an artistic Egyptian touch.

Virgin Megastore

The 2,200-square-meter Virgin Megastore is an anchor of Egypt's 550-store Citystars shopping center. The UK-based company launched a flagship store in Egypt last October and has lived up to its "Megastore" label, cramming its shelves with an impressive selection of English-language books, as well as music, DVDs, games, IT, multimedia, mobile phones and electronic gadgetry, CDs and DVDs in collaboration with Amazon.com has expanded the reach of Virgin even further. Special orders are an option if you can't find a book among the diverse selection of titles, some of which can only be found at Virgin. If you feel the need to recharge after scouring the shelves, the store features a café next to the book section complete with gourmet coffee and a menu of light items.

So now you know that its not only tourist markets, or ethnic costumes that you may wear or not, you can still enjoy a vacation in Egypt with an updated modern style and attitude.

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