Day 3 - Tourist Time

Day 3 met us with some serious tourist activities. Up first, the The Mosque of Muhammad Ali at the Citadel. Also called the Alabaster Mosque for obvious reasons, it's the most popular Mosque to visit in Cairo, and probably the most striking.


Muhammad Ali is buried inside the Mosque in grand fashion. The Minarets that extend over 80 meters high were built on only a 3 foot base - all in the 1830's. And no, you were not allowed to go to the top of them, unfortunately. The view of Cairo from the Citadel wasn't too shabby on its own though.

Afterwards, we headed down to the Mosque of Sultan Hassan, which was also a Madrasa for 400 students at a time. An older Mosque dating back to the 1300's, it has the infamous history of a collapsed Minaret that killed over 300 people. I'm also betting its entryway, the largest of its kind in Egypt, claimed a few in its time as well.

Afterwards we grabbed a fantastic lunch at Al Azhar Park, which was easily the most beautiful park we've seen during our time in Cairo. Built as a green initiative and cultural reclaiming effort, the park was started 2 decades ago, reclaiming 500 years of its existence as a debris dump. Now it features a number of underground freshwater reservoirs, a man made lake, childrens' playgrounds, and exotic gardens. And it has a great view of the first Mosque we visited.

Despite a rather high level of exhaustion (and lingering jet lag) after lunch, we pressed on to see Coptic Cairo, including the Hanging Church, the Ezra Synagogue, and the Coptic Museum. The museum featured an incredible array of early Egyptian Christian artifacts, including an original version of the Psalms of David that dates back over 1600 years, making it the oldest known Coptic Psalter. The Hanging Church was so named because it was built over the narrow beams of a Roman fortress, and is likely the oldest Christian church in all of Egypt. The Synagogue was actually a Christian Church originally, but was sold in order to cover the massive taxes levied on the Christians and was promptly turned into a Synagogue.

Last but not least, we headed over to the Smart Village (much more on that later) for a welcome dinner hosted by the Nile University. It was a great ending to a very long day, despite the fact that it may or may not have led to digestive trouble for rougly 75% of our group. They were gracious hosts and went out of there way to make us feel welcome in Egypt.