Old Baghdad Heritage Walk: Al-Rashid Street to Al-Mutanabbi

This is the walk locals take visitors on to explain Baghdad in a single afternoon. It threads the historic Rusafa quarter on the east bank of the Tigris, where the Abbasid capital, the Ottoman administration, and the modern Iraqi state each left their mark within a few hundred metres of one another.

You begin where the river meets the medieval city — at an Abbasid-era courtyard palace — then step onto Al-Rashid Street, Baghdad's first modern boulevard, with its shaded colonnades and faded grandeur. From the Ottoman clock tower of Al-Qishla you reach the Mustansiriyah, one of the oldest universities on earth, before turning into Al-Mutanabbi Street, the booksellers' road where Baghdad has bought and argued over books for a century.

The walk ends, as every good Baghdad day does, at Shabandar Café — a room of old photographs and strong tea where poets and printers have gathered since 1917. Wear comfortable shoes, go in the morning before the heat, and leave time to linger.