Cairo, Egypt

Hello, reader! My trip to Egypt was already a few months ago but I never finished posting about it because I got more than a little sidetracked following 5 different cycling races across 8 different countries, so bear with me as I finish up Egypt! (And don't worry, there are more upcoming races on my calendar!)

The National Museum has an overwhelming amount of ancient artifacts. The building is practically bursting at the seams with sqtatues, jewelery, furniture, carvings, mummies, and just about everything else under the sun. It turned out to be a good thing that the museum doesn't allow photos because otherwise you'd go through an entire memory card in no time. Unfortunately, relatively few of the artifacts have a description so Viraj and I just made up or own interpretations.

There was a big Christian community in Cairo pre-dating the Islamic era. Our first stop was to see the Hanging Church which was likely built during the late 7th century. The name comes from the church's suspended location above the Babylon Fortress.

Th church doors.

The church's interior features beautiful woodwork.

The Greek Church of St. George is nearby. It was originally built around the 10th century but the church visible today was rebuilt following a 1904 fire. As large as it looks from the outside, inside it has just a few small, cell-like chambers.

Legend has it that baby Moses was found in the reeds where the Ben Ezra Synagogue now stands. The synagogue was discovered to have house an important collection of discarded religious texts in the 19th century. Those manuscripts are now split between different academic libraries.

There are a few pockets across the city known as Islamic Cairo densely populated with mosques and madrasas.

Al-Rafa'i Mosque.

Sultan Hasan Mosque.

The citadel.

While in Egypt, I tried to dress conservatively in order to be respectful but some of the mosques still wanted me to be even more covered up, so I was given a green silk cloak to wear which made me look like the Green Goblin. Viraj found this quite hilarious.

We didn't experience tremendous variety in our diet while in Egypt, but we did have some great meals, including a traditional dish with 2 types of noodles, tomato sauce, lentils, and chick peas.

A feast of pita bread, falafel, hummus, salad, and our favorite drink which was a blend of strawberries and mangos.

One parting photo. Cairo is far more diverse than I had expected, as you'll notice from the variety of outfits in this storefront (the burkas are on the far right).