What to visit in Cairo

The Pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx are probably the country's most famous historical monuments and they are located just west of Cairo in the suburb of Giza. Despite the desert background usually depicted in photographs, the Pyramids are extremely close to Giza and slowly being encroached upon by the city's continued expansion.

The next most famous site is the Egyptian Museum, which is located in Tahrir Square in Downtown Cairo. The present building was opened on November 15th 1902 and is now host to over 120,000 objects, with several hundreds of thousands being kept in the vaults. There are 107 halls spread over its 2 floors and also houses a photography section and a library. The ground floor houses the larger items, like statues and sarcophagi, as well as having sections for the different periods of Pharaonic Egypt arranged in chronological order. The upper floor houses smaller items, coffins, the treasures of Tutankhamun and the Royal Mummies Room. More than 2 million visitors go through its gates annually; 1.5 million tourists and about 500,000 Egyptians.

A new museum, called the Grand Egyptian Museum, is due to be opened to the public in 2013. This $550 million building is sited on 50 hectares (120 acres) of land approximately 2Km (1.25 miles) from the Giza Pyramids and has, as one of its main features, a semi-transparent stone wall, made of alabaster, making up the front facade of the building.

Proudly standing atop Mokattam hill, in eastern Cairo, stands the Citadel of Saladin. This medieval Islamic fortification is another of the “must sees” in the city. Begun by Saladin in 1176 and modified and expanded by later sultans, the ornate architecture of the Citadel is famous for its Mosques, museums, and fort, and especially the Mohammad Ali Mosque with its storied domes and twin minarets.

The Coptic Church known as Al Muallaqa, located in Old, or Coptic, Cairo, is believed to be the earliest known site of Christian worship in Egypt; the church was built in the 3rd century, though it has been almost entirely replaced through successive restorations. The Al Muallaqa is also known as the ‘Hanging Church’ because it is located above a gatehouse of the ancient Roman fortress in Coptic Cairo (Babylon Fortress) and its nave is suspended over a passageway.

The Coptic Museum is also to be found in Coptic Cairo and it houses the largest collection of Egyptian Christian artefacts in the world. Founded by Marcus Simaika Pasha in 1910 to accommodate the Coptic antiquities, the museum follows the history of Christianity in Egypt from its beginnings to the present day. It also contains world's most important examples of Coptic art.

The Ben Ezra synagogue, the main house of worship for Cairo's Jewish population, is also located in Old Cairo. Here you can also see the distinctive and imposing gates of Cairo that were once part of the walls that encircled the city, but sadly, of the original 8 gates, these 3 are all that remains.

Cairo is known as ‘the city of a thousand minarets’ because of the vast amount of Mosques that are in the city and today there more than just one thousand minarets, they can be seen everywhere! Though the vast majority of Mosques tend to be for the usage of the local communities, many can be found, that have historical interest, that allow access for tourists. 2 of the best examples of these are:

The Sultan Hassan Madrassa and Mosque: This is Islam’s equivalent to the Pyramids of Giza due to its size and beauty. This Mosque was built, in Midan Al-Qal’a, according to the cruciform: an open courtyard surrounded by 4 iwans. Within its walls there are 4 Madrassas, or religious schools, and these walls surround an area of 7,906 metres2 (9,500 yards2). It is very distinguishable due to its many sides and actually has 4 facades, with the most remarkable of these being the northeast facade. This facade is 145 metres (476 feet) long and 38 metres (125 feet) tall. Its sheer wall has 4 pairs of windows set vertically into it and at the top of the wall is a massive cornice of 5 layers of stalactites, projecting about 1.5 metres (5 feet).

The Mosque of Al Refaie: This Mosque, which literally means ‘Royal Mosque’, is also located in Midan al-Qal'a, right next to the Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan and adjacent to the Citadel of Saladin. The reason it was built next to the Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan was so that it would architecturally complement the older structure, something that the 19th century rulers of Egypt used to do to ensure that they associated themselves with the perceived glory of earlier periods in Egypt's Islamic history as well as modernising the city. The mosque is the resting place of Khushyar Hanim and her son Isma'il Pasha, as well as numerous other members of Egypt's royal family, including King Farouk, Egypt's last reigning king, who died in Rome in 1965 but could not be interred here until after the death of President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970. The mosque served briefly as the resting place of Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran, who died in exile in South Africa in 1944, and was returned to Iran after World War II. Strangely enough, the room that he occupied was later used for his son! The last Shah of Iran, Mohamed Reda Bahlawy was buried here with a tragic story behind it. When the Islamic revolution rose in Iran he was exiled and could not find anywhere to live until former Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat invited him to Egypt. When he died, Sadat ordered that he should be buried in the Mosque of Al Refaie in the same room that his father had occupied. This room is one of the most beautiful rooms in the Mosque with decorated marble floor and walls. Beside the room of the Iranian Shah, there is the burial room of king Foaud (1868-1936). In the eastern wall of this room, there is a door that leads to the tomb of king Farouk.

Among Cairo's modern buildings is the free-standing Cairo Tower, which stands at a height of 187 metres (614 feet) and commands a superb view of the Giza Pyramids and Saladin’s Citadel. Until 1971 it was the tallest man-made structure in Africa, until it was surpassed by the Hillbrow Tower in Johannesburg, South Africa (269 metres or 883 feet). The Cairo Tower stands on Gezira Island, in the River Nile, in the Zamalek district of Downtown Cairo.