Help me plan a day or two in Cairo

We took our free day and got lost-ish in the Citadel and old city and chasen by adolescents. I don't think they threw rocks at us (the way the did in Morocco) but it was reasonably frightening, especially for the women in the group.

Definitely do the felucca thing in Luxor when you have the chance.

As far as what to do in Cairo, I'm sorry I can't remember anywhere in particular to direct you. The Khan el-Khalili bazaar was far and away my favorite.

Oh, and don't get tricked into accepting dinner on the train. It's almost certainly not paid for by your tickets and its not particularly good.

Mkae sure there's a breeze though. We went for a felucca trp in Luxor and ended up having to listen to our teenage pilot and his girlfriend sucking face and giggling behind us, and there was no wind at all so we just sat there, revolving slowly in the tide. Embarrassing.

However, the greatest thing we did was to take a side tour to visit the Tombs of the Nobles. It's not covered by most of the main tours and isn't that cheap (I think we paid €100), but we got a minibus and a guide all to ourselves, lunch in a really nice roadside cafe, and some really, really excellent art history. We also got to visit the homes of some of the local people which are much the same as they have always been. It was wonderful. However, we forgot (or didn't know) to bring pens and little chocolate sweets to give the children we met. So my advice would be to bring pens and little chocolate sweets.
Also bring tapes of pop music. Your drivers will like them.
I would be far too chickenshit to go anywhere in Cairo on my own, so if I had a day or two spare I would say so to my tour guide and see what he or she could arrange. If they are a reputable company, the guides will be great.

I lived just round the corner from La Bodega last year (I was in Cairo for four months). Did you try Maison Thomas as well? (Pretty much underneath). Undeniably the best pizza in the country, cheap given exchange rates, and open 24 hours. My last chaotic week was an entirely Maison Thomas-oriented dining experience.

Strangely, my friend picked up a stray kitten from el-mogamma (the distressingly large soviet-built building on Tahrir square nr. garden city). It domesticated well and didn't have rabies, thank god. It spent time sitting on my head, at which point I fell desperately in love with it.

You haven't lived till you've seen the Mubarak motorcade...

And a good view too, I presume - if you were in the Garden City one (but the Giza one must be pretty fab too).

The fish I had on the Nile cruise and some lout, whatever that is, that I had at La Bodega, were excellent. I was in a slow moving, geriatric party of 18, so our food was often organized around more prosaic, practical factors than asthetic ones, but the place we went to in Alexandria was mentioned in my Rough Guide, so maybe I am just not that fond of the way they serve their fish.

Amusing Alexandria story: they banned car horns, says my Alexandrian archaeologist friend. You can't hear the horns anymore, he says. As we walk along the corniche, horns blaring every which way. I think they like to feel superior to Cairo up there ;) - although actually the noise is less...

The calamari we had was cut in wide, insipid, yet unpalatable strips. The fish, a white fish, that we had at Fish Market, I think was the name, was mere fried, breaded fish, though I did see people going up to choose the fish they wanted cooked. The restaurant also had mussels, which would have appealed to me.

This might be a product of the local governor (Mahgoub) being a semi-godlike folk hero, then: he's utterly beloved of the people, from what I've seen/read.

Never been to Fish Market. It was always easier not to cross 6 lanes of traffic and go somewhere else!