In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mansoura sat at the centre of Egypt's cotton economy and the merchants who profited most built their ambitions in the Touryel district. The villas they left behind are an eclectic mix: Italianate facades with arabesque detailing, French mansard roofs above Egyptian courtyard layouts, colonnaded porticos next to moucharabieh screens. Nobody was following a plan. Each family built what wealth and fancy suggested.
The area is best seen on foot, at a pace slow enough to look up at the upper storeys where the architectural mix is most inventive. Some villas are in reasonable repair; others are sliding gently toward dereliction in the way that old Egyptian domestic architecture often does. A few have been subdivided into apartments, and you can sometimes hear the sounds of ordinary domestic life from behind gates that once belonged to cotton dynasties. The streets are quiet during the day and the neighbourhood does not advertise itself, which is part of its appeal. Give yourself an hour and wander without a particular destination.