Cairo

Description

 

The secret of enjoying Cairo is perhaps to do as the Cairenes and take it as it comes, with humour and heaps of patience. The reward is instant and you’ll soon discover one of the most fascinating cities in the world, where history is just another part of everyday life.

In a tale from “The Thousand and one Nights, a man who is talking of wondrous cities claims:

“He who has not seen Cairo has not seen the World. Its dust is gold; its Nile is a wonder; its women are like the Black-eyed virgins of paradise: and how could it not be otherwise, when she is the mother of the world?”

 

 

Islamic Cairo
The history of Islamic Egypt largely overlaps that’s of its capital, cairo – “The Victorious,” the name given to it by the Fatimid rulers in AD 969. Its many mosques and monuments recall the city’s Muslim history: on the foundation of the citadel of Saladin rises the 19th century mosque of Muhammad ‘Ali, considered the founder of modern Egypt. The mosques of Ibn Tulun, Al-Azhar, Sultan Hassan, and Al-Hakim Bi-Amr-I-llah are recognized as masterpieces of medieval Islamic architecture. Of special note is Khan Al-Khalili, the vast and multicolored bazaar with its labyrinth of stalls, small shops and ancient caravanserais teeming with local sellers and tourists.

Tahrir square & Old Cairo
Cairo is full of extremes: poverty and wealth, widespread illiteracy and internet cafés, mudbrick buildings beneath skyscrapers. There’s always a surprise around the corner, but somehow the city continues to function, and even to flourish. At first sight you may think of hell rather than paradise, for the chaotic traffic, where the incessant honking of car horns blends in with the slow progress of horse-drawn carriages and carts, coexists with a modern metro system. The center of it all seems to be Tahrir square, onto which faces the Egyptian museum. Five-star hotels, embassy buildings, and the high-end residential quarters of Zamalek on the island of the Nile flank historic sites such as Old Cairo and the impressive “City of the Dead”, the ancient Mamluk Cemetery. For decades the capital has continued to absorb thousands who have been brought to Cairo by the city’s irreversible process of urbanization.

 

 

Cairo Pyramids
In its relentless urban expansion, modern-day Cairo blends seamlessly with the most ancient traces of its past. The site of Heliopolis, a center of the cult of the Egyptian Sun God Atum-RA, is now an affluent suburb of the Egyptian Capital. Today the city rubs up against the Giza Plateau, whose desert plane is home to some of the most famous monuments of antiquity: The Pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure as well as the Sphinx were funerary monuments built to ensure the Pharaohs eternal life and have astounded anyone who has seen them, from the Roman conquerors to Napoleon’s soldiers to the thousands of tourists armed with cameras. 

Just south of Cairo was the site of the ancient Pharaonic capital, Memphis, where the main Pharaohs of the ancient Kingdom (about 2700-2150 BC)  were buried. Saqqara, Meidum, Dahshur, Abusir… the kingdom of the Pyramids.

 

Don’t Miss in Cairo:

• Egyptian Museum
• Coptic Cairo
• Sharia al Muizz li Din Allah
• Saqqara
• Memphis
• Dahshure 
• Giza Pyramids and Sphinx

 

At Your Leisure:

• Downtown (Wust al Balad)
• Tahrir Square
• The Citadel ( Muhammad Ali mosque)
• Sultan Hasan Mosque
• Ibn Tulun Mosque
• Al Azhar Mosque
• Khan al-Khalili 

 

Things to do in Cairo:

• Dinner Cruise
• Sound and Light Show at Giza Pyramids
• Tannoura dance at Wekalet Al-Ghouri