With verdant gardens on one side and water on the other, they were an anomaly in a city bordered on three sides by desert.
For decades, Cairo's houseboats occupied prime waterfront real estate, offering residents a front-row seat to the passing Nile River, with its water taxis, anglers, sport rowers and occasional family of ducks. But it's coming to an end: A government push to remove the string of floating homes from the city's Nile River banks has dwindled their numbers from several dozen to just a handful.
Houseboats have been a Cairo tradition dating back to the 1800s and government efforts to remove them have drawn criticism in Egypt, where residents are mourning the loss of not just their homes but a way of life. Critics say the move is part of a series of development decisions by the government of Abdel Fattah el-Sissi that endanger the city's heritage.
"The point is that they really, really don't seem to understand that there is value - intangible values - there is value in history," said Ahdaf Soueif, a prize-winning Egyptian novelist who bought and renovated a her houseboat after moving back to Egypt from the UK 10 years ago.