Egypt Pictures

Egypt Pictures: Cairo downtown; the Nile river in Cairo looking towards Zamalek island and the rickety Cairo Tower; Mohamed Ali Mosque, Cairo.

Any traveller to Cairo with a spark of adventure needs to do some walking, to see the squalor, the chaos and the magnificence side by side and understand that this is not an ancient Egyptian city - that was Thebes [Luxor] or Memphis. This was originally Babylon, founded by Coptic Christians and captured by Arabs in 641. Consequently the city is packed with stunning old architecture, dirty, dishevelled and in desperate need of maintenance it's true but still stunning stuff, if you can drag the eyes away from the kids playing in the noxious gutters, the crippled scaredy cats and the dead Fiats.

Henry:
We all liked Cairo very much particularly the old Coptic and Arabic quarters which are still very much lived in and full of life. We visited many mosques from the oldest mudbrick mosque of Ibn Talun, built in the 9th century, to the more refined and visually stunning mosque of Mohamed Ali built in the style of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul in the mid 19th century. However, the most interesting for us was the Al Azhar mosque as students from all over the Islamic World come here to study
We entered the mosque just after the mid-day prayers. It was cool and had a relaxed atmosphere so we just sat down to get the feel of the place. Small groups of young men from different nationalities were quietly talking to each other. A couple of young lads approached the girls and gave them some leaflets on the rights of women in Islam and on how it was a peaceful religion and against terrorism. It was all done in a very politely and in a friendly way.

Egypt PicturesCairo

Egypt Pictures
Cairo