For a prime spot on Qasr el-Nil bridge, spanning the River Nile near the heart of central Cairo, it's best to arrive well before sunset.
On warm spring nights, the bridge is the place to be for courting couples in the capital of the most populous Arab country, where poverty, crowds and a conservative culture leave few other meeting places.
"We know how to be in love in a place like this," says Ibrahim, 19, a student and part-time DJ in Cairo. "We come for the breeze, the view, and to be far from the pollution," he said, resting on the bridge's iron railing with his fiancee, Marwa, an 18-year-old technology student.
The high cost of getting married - from gold jewelry for the bride to the ceremony itself and a place to live - and the poverty of many residents of Cairo, means engagements can last years.
On Thursday nights on the eve of the Muslim weekend, couples line the bridge, each pair a few meters apart. They face outward to enjoy the view and avoid being seen by relatives.
Yachts and motorboats ply the Nile below - a one-hour ride can cost as little as 5 Egyptian pounds ($0.95), and vendors offer flowers for a pound apiece.
A giant fountain sprays a plume of water high in the air where two branches of the Nile meet at the end of an island lined with palm trees.
"We have so many memories from being together here," said Eman, 19, who comes once or twice a week to meet her fiancee Bahr, 21, also a student.
The two met at Eman's house two years ago under the kind of close family supervision that often surrounds engagement in Egypt, said Eman, her bright yellow headscarf fluttering in the warm breeze.
Almost all Egyptians live with their families until marriage, and the country's traditions make it difficult for couples to meet in seclusion.
Meetings on the Nile bridges are a chance to be together away from parental oversight. Social codes that frown on public displays of affection, such as holding hands, are often overlooked on the bridges.
"We can't go to any place where the family can see us," says Mohammed, 26, an engineering student at Cairo University. "You can take your sweetheart to a bridge, look at her, and forget about the street behind."
Many young people also have difficulty paying for coffee in a cafe or going to the cinema. Inflation, at a three-year high of 14.4 percent in the year to March, hits the poor hardest.
Despite Egypt's rapid economic growth, helped by flows of petrodollars from nearby Gulf Arab countries, the proportion of people living in poverty has risen. About a fifth of Egypt's roughly 75 million people live on less than $1 per day, the United Nations said in October.
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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