Cairo

Cairo
Cairo is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, the city that never sleeps. Cairo tend to be the city that have a bit of everything where ancient monuments meets the modernity of nowadays in a real rare experience. Beyond the modern scene, you will find history from ancient civilization for centuries.

Old Cairo and Coptic Cairo refer to the oldest areas of settlement, predating the founding of Cairo and the arrival of Islam in Egypt. Islamic Cairo is the historic core of the city, built as the capital of the Fatimid Caliphate during the 10th century and full of beautiful medieval Islamic architecture. Downtown Cairo is the youngest area of the city. Built during the second part of the 19th century as the city expanded and modeled on the great cities of Europe, it is the heart of modern Cairo.

If you didn’t tour Cairo’s attractions your tour will be missing the true Egyptian street life. Find best attractions to visit and magnificent things to do in so called “ Umm Al-Dunya” ( the mother of the world) with some recommendations as listed:


 

Tut Ankh Amun Collection
Tutankhamun’s enormous tomb and the impressive discoveries that were made inside it, and the tomb belongings of Tanis which were both discovered after the museum opened including Tutankhamun’s death mask and sarcophagus (Room 3), the pharaoh's lion throne (Room 35) and wardrobe (Room 9).


The Old Kingdom
 The Old Kingdom in ancient Egyptian history, also known as the "Pyramids Builders Period", was a very vital period that left us so many remarkable artifacts and objects, and that’s why it has a huge section in the museum. Some of the most important achievements of that period are the Pyramids of Giza, the Step Pyramid of Saqqara, the Pyramids of Dahshur, and the Pyramids of Abu Sir. As a part of the Old Kingdom, there is that statue of King Khafre which is made out of alabaster. It is put on display in the second half of the ground floor of the museum. The Museum Of Egyptian Antiquities also houses a huge collection of small statues of servants carrying out their everyday duties and responsibilities, as a representation of everyday life at that time.
 
 
The Middle Kingdom
The Museum houses ten of the most remarkable statues that date back to the Middle Kingdom. The ten statues portray King Senosert I, who belongs to the 12th dynasty and all of them are made out of limestone. The Middle Kingdom period started in Egypt after the fall of the Old Kingdom and it wasn’t really a great period of the ancient Egyptian history in every aspect.  At the beginning of the 12th dynasty, the living conditions of the ancient Egyptians were significantly improved and even arts, industries, and artifacts witnessed a great improvement.
 
However, when the living conditions went bad, Egypt went through a transitional period once again, as the nobles fought among each other. Such corruption and chaos lead to the Hyksos invading the country. King Ahmose was able to defeat the Hyksos and bring back Egypt’s freedom. After that, Ahmose founded the 18th dynasty, which was the first dynasty of the New Kingdom.


Cairo Down Town
Egyptians refer to Downtown as Wust al-Balad, or in other words “The heart of the city”. The reason of calling it so is because the Downtown area is the part of the city that is full of life and activities. Cairo is sometimes called “the city that never sleeps” of Egypt, and so for Downtown. It is not only the heart of Cairo, but also the center for every life activity and facility, and the hub for different cultures. Downtown is famous for Midan Talaat Harb and Midan Tahrir.
Downtown was built in the 1880’s as part of Khedive Ismail’s massive building project to modernize Cairo and other Egyptian cities. The Khedive’s goal was to make like a European city. Museum of Islamic Art is one the main attractions in DownTown, it contains a well-curated collection of artwork and architectural features from the era after Islam arrived in Egypt (641 AD).


Islamic Cairo
Islamic Cairo is the historic core of the city. When the Fatimid dynasty conquered Egypt in 969 AD, they constructed a new capital north of the existing city to serve as their administrative center. This new city, named Al-Qahira (meaning The Vanquisher in English), gave the modern city its name.
 
Al-Muizz Al-Deen Street
The greatest concentration of sights in Islamic Cairo. This street was the main street through the city when it was built in the 11th century and mausoleums and palaces were constructed here. The northern section of the street (between Bab El-Fotouh and Al-Azhar Street) was recently restored. This is one of the most picturesque parts of Cairo. The Qala’un Complex here is one of the impressive in the city.
 It is easy to spend a day in this area, ending up in the evening at Cairo’s famous 14th century souk, Khan Al-Khalili. Restoration work on the southern section of the street (from the Ghouriya Complex to Bab Zuweila) was begun in 2011. Also in the area of Khan Al-Khalili is Al-Azhar Mosque.


Salah El Din Citadel
Salah Al-Deen (know as Saladin to European historians) overthrew the Fatimid dynasty in 1171 AD, establishing the new Sunni Ayyubid Caliphate. Given the threat of invasion by European crusader armies, Saladin decided to improve the fortifications of the city and in 1176 AD he began construction of a wall that would encircle both Al-Qahira (today Islamic) and Fustat (Old Cairo). Saladin’s Citadel served as the seat of government in Egypt for 700 years until Khedive Ismail moved into Abdin Palace in newly constructed Downtown Cairo in the 1870’s.
The Citadel looks very different today than it did in its original capacity as a fortress the Crusader armies. It has been expanded and remodeled by many different rulers. In the 14th century Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammed built a mosque there that still bears his name and the Southern Enclosure of the fort next to Saladin’s original walls. The most noticeable changes came in the 19th century.

Ibn Tulun Mosque and Gayer Anderson House
Ibn Tulun Mosque is the oldest mosque built in the city and the largest mosque in terms of land area. it was built by Ibn Tulun between 876 AD & 879 Ad, who was the governor of Al Fustat in the 9th Century by the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad.

The Mosque Space is 2.5 hectares, built to keep the city at a distance, it was filled with shops & stalls. Ibn Tulun got inspired back to his homeland especially “ancient mosque of Samarra” besides, he added his own innovations. Some architectural historians said the mosque was the first building to use t pointed arch, 200 years before the European Gothic arch.
 Another unique feature of the mosque is its use of an exterior enclosure wall. In Baghdad, these walls were intended to separate the sacred space of the mosque from the city around it. In Egypt, however, this enclosure was eventually filled with the houses of wealthy Egyptians, who built doors into the walls of the mosque to provide their houses with private and direct access inside.
All of these houses have now been demolished and the doorways sealed except for the two that now form the Gayer-Anderson Museum.

Robert Gayer-Anderson House
Robert Gayer-Anderson was a British colonial officer, who lived in these houses in the 1930’s with the permission of the Egyptian government. He was an Orientalist and an avid collectors, filling the house with his personal collection of art, furniture and carpets, while overseeing its restoration.
When he left Egypt in 1942, he left the entire contents of the house to the Egyptian government. The result today is a completely restored and furnished home that is considered one of the best preserved examples of 17th century Cairo’s architecture in the city.
More recently, the house was used for part of the filming of the James Bond film, ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’.

While visited by relatively few tourists, these two sites are truly among the most impressive in Cairo. The combination of the beautifully restored mosque and the museum next to one another provide an unparalleled view back into Cairo’s past. Located in the Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood of Cairo, they are very near to Sultan Hassan Mosque and Saladin’s Citadel.

Souk El Khayamia (Tent Makers Market)
Just beyond the southern walls of Fatimid Cairo across the street from Bab Zuweila stands a singular space in modern Cairo. There used to be hundreds of covered markets selling all kinds of goods throughout the city, but Khayamia, the Tentmakers Market, is the only one remaining.
When exit Bab Zuweila and walk across a narrow, busy street, you will see an alley ahead of you covered by a high roof. The alley is lined on either side with stalls from which merchants in Cairo have sold their wares for centuries. The merchants here specialize in a variety of textile goods.

Coptic Cairo
Coptic Cairo is unique area with Old Cairo that has a concentration of Christian churches and other sites that date from the centuries between the decline of the pharaonic religion and the arrival of Islam when Egypt had a Christian majority. Coptic Cairo is largely built around the fort of Babylon on upon the remains of its walls.

The Coptic Museum
Holds the largest collection of Coptic Christian artwork and artifacts in the world. Founded in 1910, the museum records Coptic history from the arrival of Christianity in Egypt up through the Ottoman era, displaying a mixture of artwork influenced by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman traditions.
There are also six churches here that date back to the early Christian Era. The Hanging Church, or the Church of the Virgin Mary, was built in the 9th century to ‘hang’ high upon the walls of Babylon. The effect of this ‘hanging’ is now diminished significantly as ground levels have raised around the walls.

Deeper into Coptic Cairo there are several other older churches, including the Church of St. Sergius, which dates from the 5th century and was supposedly built upon the site of a crypt where the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) to shelter during there time in Egypt. Even further back is Ben Ezra Synagogue. This is the oldest synagogue in Cairo, founded in the 9th century on what is claimed to be either the site of the Temple of Jeremiah or the site where the pharaoh’s daughter found Moses among the reeds.

The Hanging Church
The most famous site in Coptic Cairo is the Church of the Virgin Mary, better known by its nickname, the Hanging Church. This name comes from the fact that it was built atop the walls of the 4th century BC Roman fortress of Babylon, the remains of which are still visible about Coptic Cairo
Although the effect is significantly diminished today by the fact that the ground level has risen over 30 feet over the centuries due to the accumulation of trash and dust, originally this church towered above its surroundings on the high walls of the fortress.

The church dates from the 9th century, but the site is thought to have first been occupied by the church as early as the 3rd century AD, making it one oldest Christian religious site in Egypt. It is also considered to be the most beautiful of the old churches in the area, although a 19th-century portico built onto the front of the church obscures some of this beauty. Inside the portico through the 13th-century facade of the church is still visible.
the ornate interior is covered in bone and ivory inlaid designs that seem influenced by the geometric and organic forms that characterize Islamic art.


Jewish Cairo

Ben Ezra Synagogue
Located deep in the winding alleys of Coptic Cairo, Ben Ezra Synagogue is the oldest Jewish temple in Cairo, dating from the 9th century AD. Like almost all of Egypt’s synagogues, it is simply a historical site today following the departure of nearly all of Egypt’s significant Jewish community during the 1950s after the founding of Israel and the Free Officers’ Revolution leaded by Nasser, but this site still holds great importance in the contemporary history of Judaism.

The 19th-century discovery a huge cache of documents, the synagogue’s treasury, which recorded the history and transactions of Cairo’s Jewish community since the 11th century, provided the most complete account of medieval Jewry anywhere in the world. These documents kept by the British Governor, and now held at Cambridge University in England.
Two separate myth state that the synagogue is built on the site where the pharaoh’s daughter found Moses hidden in the reeds of the Nile or on the site of the Temple of Jeremiah.