June 21, 2015

After spending our first day here visiting the pyramids and sphinx, we spent Friday visiting more of the historical areas of the city.  We started off our day on Friday by going to the Citadel and the Coptic Churches in Old Cairo.  First off, the Citadel was pretty amazing.  It was built almost 1,000 years ago and is just as strong today as it was when it was originally built.  Inside of the Citadel is the Muhammad Ali Mosque which was built in the early 1800’s.  Even today, it still has much of the original decoration.  The chandeliers, wall hangings and even some of the carpets are original.

The Citadel is no longer the working capital of the country, so it has been turned into a historic site (although the Mosque is still active) and has some really awesome views of the city.

After spending some time going through the Citadel and the Mosque, we went into Old Cairo to see some of the oldest churches.  Well, we didn’t realize the Friday (especially Friday during Ramadan) was like our Sunday in the US, so the Hanging Church was closed to tourists.  We were also pretty limited where we could go in since there were prayer services going on in most of the churches.  We were able to go to one of the oldest Christian churches still in existence (dates back to the 4th century) and it is said that Joseph, Mary and Jesus lived at the site of this church for some time while they were traveling through Egypt.  (The church was built over the site where they stayed).  There is a hole in the ground with a viewing port to where they stayed.  Since there was a church service going on, we could just go down the steps to look, but couldn’t take pictures inside.  We also went to the Ben Ezra Synagogue which is over 1,000 years old.  It’s pretty amazing to be inside of these places when you think about how long they have been around and the history in each place.

We also walked through the local bazaar area which was pretty cool…it kind of reminded me of the alley ways in Aladdin.  🙂

After that, we spent the afternoon at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.  They had some AMAZING artifacts from King Tut.  We saw his coffins, sarcophagi, tons of jewelry, and his burial mask that was 11 kg of solid gold!!  The only complaint that I have is that we were not allowed to take cameras into the museum, so we don’t have any pictures from the inside.  In terms of a museum, it is very different from anything in the US.  We are used to everything being behind glass and labeled, but this was more like a store room with everything just sitting out.  We could touch just about anything (except the jewelry and Tut’s exhibits), and it was all just sitting around.  Not a lot of organization and lots of the stuff wasn’t even labeled.  I suppose that they don’t know what everything is and that’s why so much is still a mystery.

Right next to the museum is Tahrir Square where all of the protests took place when President Mubarak was overthrown.  There is also a government building right there that was burnt down after he left office.  The guide told us that they burnt the building down in order to try and hide many of the documents before they could be discovered.  (Basically like a corporation illegally shredding incriminating documents).  When the building was burning, they were afraid that it would damage the museum, but luckily, they were able to keep the fire at bay.  They are now getting ready to tear down the building to expand the Egyptian Museum and build a garden area.

Following our days of touring, we spent Saturday and Sunday at the mall in town, then just at the pool at the hotel.  There was an awesome wave pool with a waterslide at the hotel, so Hayden as perfectly happy just hanging out for the day.  We were also able to find a Toys R Us and a Cold Stone, so everyone was happy!  🙂

Tomorrow we leave first thing in the morning and fly to Aswan where we will be visiting Abu Simbel and then going on a Nile cruise up to Luxor.  Lots of fun still to come!