The Citadel and Old Cairo

After a severe case of achy thighs, caused by all the tomb raiding of the past few days, I have finally managed to pull my finger out and arrange my flight out of Egypt and into Jordan. This is the busy season for the region, as the temperatures are now starting to cool down enough to allow visiting the sites without frying to a crisp.

So, tomorrow I fly out of Cairo and into Amman (the capital of Jordan for a few days visit). I have just not had enough time to do what I wanted and leisurely travel back through Europe, so I am going to catch a flight back out of Cairo on Monday, giving me Tuesday and Wednesday to recover before returning to work.

For my final day in Cairo I decided to go and see the Citadel of Salah-Adin (Saladin), and a sample of the religious buildings in the city. If I am honest, this was a bit of a waste of time, the citadel and old Cairo tour is not really worth doing, although the mosque at the citadel is very impressive.

The first site we visited was called the Hanging church (so named because it is built on top of the Roman water gate). It is a very old church, and is Coptic Christian (those buggers who vandalised all the temples!). Coptics, have a different papacy to Roman Catholics, and on the walls, the tour guide (who was Coptic) delighted in showing us the latest Pope - whose name escapes me. Anyway, the church is very nice, and I usually enjoy visiting churches and castles, but for some reason this place did not hold the same appeal as it once might, having feasted my eyes on ancient temples for the past two weeks.

A token snap of the church, but my heart wasn't in it

After this and only a few yards up the road is the Ben Ezra synagogue. This is a place for Jews to meet and pray. It seems a bit strange that Jews live in such an Islamic city, but there are some, although they are not overt about their Jewry (understandably so I suppose). They really are a small section of the population, as out of the 23 million people living in Cairo, it is estimated only 1,300 are Jewish. We were not allowed to take any photos inside the synagogue, but to be honest I was, once again, not really that enthused in taking pictures of this place anyway.

Finally we moved along to the Citadel, a huge fortress on the top of a mountain looking down over Cairo. On this site is a very impressive mosque, the mosque of Mohammed Ali. Before you ask, no, it is not the mosque of the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, but a completely different fellow, who came here during the Ottoman occupation of Cairo. The mosque is made out of alabaster, and it is a blooming big building, easily competing with the Duomo in Florence, or our own St Paul’s cathedral. The tour guide proudly pronounced that this was the best example of a mosque in the world.

This mosque was actually very impressive, reminded me of Age of Empires

Having not been to many mosques, I can’t comment on the validity of this claim, but I do get a sneaking suspicion that if I went to another Islamic country I could see the best mosque in the world there too!

The view from the citadel down into Cairo

Ok, I am keeping this post short and sweet as I need to be up and out at 4:30am tomorrow in order to get to the airport and over to Jordan. Speak to you all from Jordan.

Cairo at sunset