Well, another day to explore in Cairo! We wake up, go get our breakfast where we don’t get tired of taking in the view.

We take the opportunity to take some pictures while there isn’t anyone else upstairs for breakfast. It feels weird to take a bunch of pictures when there are other guests up here, but… all of the guests we have seen have at least taken some pictures. How could you not?

But, you have to also take into account that this isn’t “just” the pyramids. You also have the entirety of Giza all around you that goes right up to the pyramids. And in Giza there is a lot of people and homes. We also take the opportunity to look out over Giza, something that you most likely don’t regularly see from tourists to the area.

We also have to take into account that the morning is pretty much the only time we see this view during the day. We don’t come back to the hotel before nightfall, so all of our pictures have to be while eating breakfast, hehe. But, we can’t just stick around here all day, we will try to see a lot today. (As if that’s not what we try to do every day, hehe). We go downstairs and get ready to then take a car from our hotel to Cairo.

It doesn’t take us too long to get to our destination as we again film the drive. We’re about to do something that many people don’t think about when they think about the Middle East. When many people think of the Middle East they think of Islam, and we have not done much to change that mind frame for our dear readers by visiting mosques, (Islamic) religious museums, and many other such sites. But, the Middle East is not only the birthplace of Islam, but of Christianity as well. You may remember that we have talked about the Copts of Egypt in both the Egyptian Museum of Cairo and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. Well, today we will explore this a bit further by visiting Christian Cairo.

Well, a bit of “tourist” information before we actually get going. You can get tours of both Christian and Islamic Cairo, usually in a single day with a private tour guide. Of course, as you must be sick of being reminded, we did not get a tour to do this, and we are only in Christian Cairo for now. (Islamic Cairo is where we were a few nights ago, but we saw like 10% of it). Well, enough of the preamble, let’s get to exploring!

Before we start, forgive us if we misname anything, our lack of proper terminology has been in full view during this entire trip. But, with that out of the way…

As you can see above we enter a walled complex at the beginning of our explorations. Everything seems to be walled off and the narrow alleyways go this way and that way as you wander around finding different religious sites. As you can also see, there are many (Christian) religious items for purchase. The items are various including books, bibles, relics, religious (Christian) iconography, and your typical tourist souvenirs of mugs, postcards, and other such things.

But immediately we make it to our first stop of our exploration: the Nunnery of Saint George.

Inside there are many icons of Saint George, where we read that there are over 200 churches dedicated to the Saint throughout Egypt.

Now, something interesting you may have noticed is that there is a different alphabet on some of the icons above. You are accustomed to the Latin alphabet (which you are reading now), and throughout this trip you have seen the Arabic alphabet as well. The third alphabet that you may have noticed above is the Coptic script. This script is supposed to be the “latest stage” of Egyptian, the language used in Ancient Egypt (super cool!). Also, this is supposed to be the first alphabetic script used in Egypt (rather than hieroglyphics, as you know from Ancient Egypt). After all of that information we must tell you that our research shows that no one really uses this script other than members of the Coptic Orthodox Church when writing their religious texts. There is more to the Nunnery of Saint George than the iconography, there is also Saint George’s Well.

This is a water tap directly to Saint George’s Well. It is said that this water has the power of healing miracles through the blessing of its water for both Christians and non-Christians alike. While here we saw many people using this water. This well is supposed to be a well that the Holy Family (Jesus and his immediate family) used/drank from during their journey through Egypt (more on this later).

But, let’s take a step back and actually explain where we are after you have seen around the inside of the Nunnery. So, Saint George’s Convent is one of the most ancient convents and it is located inside of a Babylonian fort in Old Cairo. You can imagine that this is a very important place for Christians as it contains many, many important objects, some of great importance. This area around the nunnery has Saint George’s Well, the chain that Saint George was tied with during his tortures, a relic of Saint George, and a relic and icon of Saint Philomena the martyr. Most people that visited this area went around from relic to relic touching them and trying to receive blessings from them.

The last thing before we leave the area around the nunnery is this, it is showing the entirety of the Christian Church (at least that’s what our translator app tells us that is says along the top). Maybe it is specific to the Coptic Church? We are not 100% sure, but it was a very large display with many, many people on it.

Alright, back to walking around the passageways around this “compound”. As we walk along the pathways split and we choose the side with less people. Now, we will readily admit that, as always, we’re not 100% sure what we are looking at. We are literally wandering around at this point. (Maybe this is why people take tours, hehe). So, we will just show you some pictures and explain what we know and not explain what we don’t know. The first example of what we don’t know, is the name of this church.

It obviously has the iconography of Saint George all over it, but beyond that we are not sure. Looking for it online it is listed under one name… but upon further investigation it seems that that name is incorrect. This area is filled with a lot of churches, some open while others are closed. So we only come up with information for the churches/buildings that are open. We continue walking.

The next is this doorway. From what we understand… this is the entrance to El Gawhary Tomb. As you may be able to make it, it says that there is no photography and no cellphones.

Well, as always, we are honest with you. We did not know who El Gawhary was, but it ended up being an interesting story, which is why it makes the cut into this post.

Ibrahim El-Gawhary was Egypt’s chief scribe/prime minister during the 1700s. Well, he was born to a Coptic family in Egypt. As he grew up he excelled in writing, which eventually led to him becoming a scribe and transcribing religious texts and distributing those texts on to different churches. Eventually this led to two different events in his life. The first was meeting Pope John XVIII (Pope of Alexandria, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church) and being blessed by him. The second was becoming the chief scribe of Egypt under Muhammad Abu-al-Dhahab, a very important position and one that would eventually lead to the reason for him being buried in such a religiously important place.

Since Ibrahim El-Gawhary was such an important person in the government of Egypt he was able to issue fatwas (legal rulings based on Islamic law) to either build or fix churches and monasteries. Why is this so important? At this point in time the Copts were not allowed to either build or fix churches and monasteries without explicit government approval, which was rarely given, until El-Gawhary came along. Throughout all of these constructions, he had a tomb for himself built close to the Church of Saint George. Interesting.

Next up, something that we could not find much information about. We believe that we have successfully translated what we are looking at… but beyond that we don’t know too much. So, we will just tell you that this is the shrine to Anba Ruwais (الأنبا رويس), the general bishop.

The little information we could find about his life makes it seem like he was very well regarded and led a peculiar life before becoming a bishop. (We read that he once ran away into the desert when Pope Kyrillos VI tried to appoint him bishop). This would make sense as to why it is an open shrine where we saw many people going and paying their respects and asking for blessings. We tried to time the picture above to explicitly not capture the moment where they are asking for their blessings as we believed that moment to be personal. But, you get the idea.

We continue walking around and eventually make it to what we believe is Saint Mary Church. Hopefully we are correct, we are basically trying to map our pictures to Google Maps, and that is not always accurate, especially in countries where English is not the main language. If we are wrong… please let us know and we will correct the information!

Alright, we need to double back now because we’re not sure where to go from here, haha. Again, maybe a tour guide wouldn’t be a teeeeeeeerrible idea… but, would we have seen all of this with one? We will never know, haha. Back we go!

Now we’re back to where we had previously told you that the pathways split, and now we go towards all of the people. Just compare the difference between the above and below pictures. Way different.

Why are there so many people here? Especially when compared to the rest of this area of Old Cairo? It is because of the religious significance of what is just beyond the above archway. Actually, just above the archway is a perfect hint. This is a very significant place in the Flight into Egypt of the Holy Family. Just beyond the archway is the entrance to the “Cavern Church, and the martyrs Sergius and Bacchus, known as Abu Serga”.

From beyond the entrance, the entrance itself, and once stepping inside (below), you can really tell that this is the place that most visitors come to in Old Cairo.

So, we now have to explain. Again, forgive us if we oversimplify or miss any details…

This church is part of the Flight into Egypt of the Holy Family from the Gospel of Matthew. It is said that soon after Jesus’ birth an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and warned him to flee to Egypt with Mary and the infant Jesus because King Herod would seek to kill the child. They fled to Egypt as it was beyond King Herod’s control, but it was still easily accessible for the family to flee to. Well, the Holy Family is said to have stayed three months in the cavern at this location that would later have a church built upon it. Very interesting.

As you can see, the church is filled with objects from the time that the Holy Family lived in this cavern. On the left you see a well that the Holy Family drank from while at the cavern, on the right you see a stone from the original cavern where Jesus had stayed, and in the middle you see the entrance to the cavern itself. Below you can see that a small area has been setup within this cavern for people to visit.

This area is roped off for people to just witness and walk by. Once back in the main church there is more time to take it all in and observe both the iconography and architectural details of the church itself. The style of the iconography we see around the church is similar to what we have seen in Greek and Russian Orthodox churches.

And finally, they provide a map for us to understand the vast geography that the Holy Family covered during the Flight into Egypt.

Finally, we leave the Cavern Church and we are directly in front of a little shop that sells souvenirs and other things related to both the Cavern Church and the Coptic religion as a whole. We browse a little bit before continuing on away from all of the people. Just a bit further is the Church of Saint Barbara.

Before I show you inside, this is a good moment to highlight something interesting we noticed. Most of the churches around here have so far seemed like very simple buildings from the outside before welcoming you into very beautiful and ornate interiors. Not sure if there is a reason for this or it is just coincidence, but we thought we would point it out to our dear readers as well (if you hadn’t put it together already on your own). Now, onto the inside!

Well… that’s that. We continue on a bit further just trying to see what we see. Well, there was a closed synagogue a bit further along, but we couldn’t get a nice picture of it. We continue and eventually make it to what seems to be the end of the compound, and what do we find?. It is hidden behind the cars… but it is a football (soccer) field! Hehe. Of course we had to take a picture of it, however bad it may be.

We walk a tiny bit more… but we quickly turn around. We ended up in a cemetery. We took a picture, but it isn’t a good one and not even worth sharing, haha. But just for you to know (and something my partner should really internalize) you don’t always have to keep walking forward when there doesn’t seem to be anything left to see, haha. So, we turn back around and make our way back towards the start.

We take our final look into the compound where all of the churches, monasteries, shrines, and football (soccer) field have been. It was well worth the visit, and it is highly recommended.

We leave this area, turn left, and this is what we see!

Just because we left the previous compound with all of its churches behind, that doesn’t mean that that was all of the churches that Old Cairo has to offer! This is the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George, and it is MASSIVE. We enter through the small entrance and come into a nice courtyard where the size of the church can be much better appreciated. It is incredible!

Now some quick facts about the church. It was constructed on the northern tower of the Fortress of Babylon at the beginning of the 1900s, and this is why it has a round shape. And it was built here and dedicated to Saint George because tradition says that he was kept in a prison close to the church and martyred there. The final quick fact, the Greek flag is next to the Egyptian flag in front of the church since it is a Greek Orthodox church. Very interesting. And there are a lot of people walking around, visiting, and just relaxing around the church.

Finally, we will just show you a few of the beautiful pictures of the area around and inside the church.

And we continue with our self-guided tour of Coptic Cairo. We leave the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George, turn left, and arrive immediately to the entrance of the Hanging Church.

The Hanging Church is so named because it literally seems to be suspended in mid air (which we will show you). Many people come to visit the church for its religious significance, and it was actually the residence of the Coptic Patriarch from the 7^th to 13^th century. Apart from this it has 110 icons hung around the church and many, many relics as well. One such painting of the Virgin Mary dates back to the time of Patriarch Abraham (975-978). But before you see any of the church itself, we enter through the above doorway and walk through a little passage that is adorned with religious mosaics. And don’t be fooled, we timed these pictures to show them as clearly as possible, there are quite a few people visiting this church.

But then it is time to enter the church itself. Please notice the architecture and geometric designs everywhere.

Then we just walk around the church taking it all in. Again, it has a lot of icons, which you can see from our pictures. Many people went from icon to icon and relic to relic touching them (the ones you were allowed to touch) and asking for blessings.

So the church has many areas dedicated to various people from Christianity including St. George, John the Baptist, and the Virgin Mary (the central area). And although we keep referring to it as the Hanging Church, its official name is the Church of the Virgin Mary. The church, like the Church of St. George, was constructed on the ruins of the Fortress of Babylon (built in 98 CE by Emperor Trajan) during the 4^th century. It is built over two of the fort’s towers using a foundation of palm tree logs and stones. Done in such a way that it really appears to be hanging. You can even look down through the floor of the church without seeing any points of connection.

It is hard to see in the picture above, but believe us when we say that that is the ground underneath the church at the bottom of that opening. Very, very interesting. We suppose that it is more of a thing to witness than experience through a simple picture. (So many things on this trip could fall into this category). But, with that it is time to finish up the Church of the Virgin Mary / the Hanging Church.

After all of the pictures we’ve already shown you, the little information we’ve given you, and the time we have spent here you would think we would be done. You could not be more wrong. We actually turn right this time upon exiting the Hanging Church and walk back a bit to visit something we had skipped. This:

We have told you how some of these churches have been built directly on top of the Fort of Babylon, well, this is one of the surviving pieces of that fort.

Now, this fort once again highlights the history that exists within Egypt and that it goes way beyond “just” Ancient Egypt and the pyramids. Old Cairo seems to have been settled during the Late Period (664-525 BCE) and its foundation was as a river port for the Nile. However, having the navigability of the Nile was not enough for the people of Old Cairo and eventually Necho II (610-595 BCE) attempted to connect the Nile and the Red Sea around this geographical area. We say tried because they were unsuccessful, with the Persian King Darius (521-486 BCE) finishing this canal. The sign seems to suggest that this canal was closed at some point between King Darius and the Roman Emperor Trajan who reopened the canal in 112 CE, but he shifted it slightly to this location. He then built a massive stone harbour at this location. This harbour was later transformed to a strategic fortress by Emperor Diocletian around 300 CE, which is what we see above and what the other churches were built on top of. This was just one such fortress that was constructed along the Nile Valley in a bid to secure it from outside attack. Old Cairo would remain a central point in Egypt throughout the years, including after the Arab Conquest of Egypt in 641 CE when the new capital of al-Fustat was founded around the nucleus of the former fortress. Super cool!

[As a small aside, we do realize that some of the information we gave from this sign is slightly different than previous information we’ve given from other signs. But, what can we do about that? Haha.]

With that it is time to enter our last area of the day, the Coptic Museum!

Now we will give you fair warning, this post is already getting long and we have only just entered a museum. You can imagine what that means if you have been following our travels so far, hehe. My partner read all of the little signs, took a bunch of pictures, and now pretends to tell you all about our visit, hehe. Let’s get right to it!

As soon as we enter we see that we will be inundated by many, many examples of Coptic architecture. We would soon learn that many of these examples come from various monasteries from around Egypt. And before entering this museum we had no idea how important what we just mentioned is. Monasticism is said to be the most important contribution of the Copts to the world civilization with Saint Antony of Egypt (251-356 CE) known as “the father of the monks”. The birth of communal monasticism began with Saint Pachom (292-346 CE) in Tabennisi (Upper Egypt) outlining the precise rules that would govern a monk’s life. Saint Jerome (no years given) would then help these rules spread further by having these rules translated into Latin from a Greek translation that itself was translated from the original Coptic text. These rules were then spread throughout Europe through visitors that toured Egypt throughout the fourth and fifth centuries. Because of all of this, the Egyptian monasticism heavily influenced European monasticism, especially the Benedictine order.

This life is also present in their architecture and wall paintings, which are almost all monastic in nature (which we plan on showing you). But the above paragraph also highlights the importance that the Coptic people put on written texts and preserving those texts. Within Coptic monasteries there were big libraries that contained manuscripts in Greek, Syriac, Old Nubian, Ethiopian, Armenian, Arabic, as well as original Coptics texts. Incredible. This not only shows their scholarly focus, but also demonstrates that these monastic communities were also multi-ethnic. Super cool. Especially when we consider that we will readily admit that we only knew superficial information about the Copts before coming to Egypt.

And now time for the pictures with limited information, hehe.

First is this image from the Monastery of St. Jeremiah (Saqqara) from the 6^th/7^th century. The saints from left to right are St. Onophrius, St. Macarius, Apa Apollo the Great, and St. Pamun.

The Ahnas Sculptures below will have a bit more history to them as they had a very big sign that went with them. The below sculptures were discovered in 1891 by Edouard Naville, but he incorrectly identified the ruins as a church. So, for many years the depictions on the columns and artifacts were incorrectly fit through a Christian lens. This is interesting because they depict scenes from Greek mythology like the birth of Aphrodite, Leda and the swan, Europa and the bull, Orpheus, Daphne, Pan, Dionysus, and Heracles. Of course we had to get a close up of Heracles fighting a lion (referring to the twelve labours of Heracles). But, why is this included in the Coptic Museum? Solely because of Naville incorrectly identifying them as belonging to a church. And because it highlights that in Egypt there was almost a direct transition from this paganism to Christianity. They highlight that this transition was neither abrupt nor final where there was a lengthy overlap and intermingling. Even after Christianity entered into Egypt the Copts continued to pull from the mythological subjects that they were familiar with. Fascinating.

The next two pieces are from the Monastery of Saint Jeremiah (Saqqara) and both date to approximately the 6^th century. On the left there is some Coptic scripture including the name of Saint Anthony and on the right a niche depicting Christ.

The next monastery we “visit” is that of Saint Apollo in Bawit. Here we can see a famous niche that at the top has Christ enthroned in a mandorla that is being carried on wheels with the heads of the four creatures of the apocalypse visible; the eagle, ox, lion, and man. The Archangel Michael is on the left with Gabriel on the right. Below them you can see the Holy Virgin who is holding the infant Jesus with the twelve apostles and two local saints on either side of her. Some of the most important artworks for the Copts come from the Monastery of Saint Apollo.

Now we will pause a bit to just admire the architecture that the Copts have left us, both from their monasteries but also in the design of the building itself.

And remember how we have been saying that every self-respecting museum in the Middle East has to have a section of historical and beautiful Qurans? Well… that obviously wouldn’t really fit in within the Coptic Museum, haha. So, instead, we have historic texts of the Four Gospels. On the left we have an incomplete version in Coptic from the 11th century and on the right we have a version in Arabic from 1340.

And then we were super excited to see the “most ancient book of Psalms known” but… no such luck. In its place was a handwritten note. Must be being studied or on loan. Dang. I think we all know how much my partner and I enjoy looking at ancient books/manuscripts. I suppose we will just have to get over it looking at another Heracles, hehe.

The only reason we show this here and not only in an Instagram photo dump is to show the similarities between the Coptic textile work between depicting Greek mythology above and Christian iconography below. And for a general callback to when we showed you Coptic textile manufacturing in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.

And, finally, we will end off this part of the museum with some more iconography. First, was this hall that was filled with icons, but we will highlight one in particular, that of Saint Nicholas. Of course many of you will know him as Santa Claus. The card underneath the icon says that Saint Nicholas was bishop of Myra (modern Dembre, Turkey) and lived from 270 to 345. The icon of Saint Nicholas comes from the 18^th century.

And for our final work of iconography, we have this. This is said to be a very rare form of iconography that only really came out of Palestine as keepsakes/souvenirs after visiting the Holy Land. The icon depicts various religious events and is said to be exhibited for the first time at this museum. The sign also says that these types of icons did not really make it to Europe and are mostly found in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. This one dates back to 18^th century Palestine. Super cool and super impressive artistry. You really can’t appropriately appreciate it all in the below picture.

We then left this part of the exhibit and went to the last little part. It was showing different pieces of ancient churches of Old Cairo (some of the ones we visited today), but this is what caught our eye. Just look at the level of detail! It is a wooden litter inlaid with both ivory and mother of pearl. It was used to carry women on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Wow. The exact date is unknown, but it is from the Ottoman period.

And now we’re done the museum, but we didn’t know how to fit this in before, so this is as good a place as any. In one of our previous pictures you may have noticed the intricate designs on the ceiling. Well, we noticed this as we walked around as well, of course. The ceilings were absolutely ornate and beautiful. We just had to take pictures, but we took too many. So we will narrow it down to just four for you here and maybe publish the rest on Instagram eventually.

And now it is time to leave the Coptic Museum. We can say that it was a very nice visit, and recommend you set some time aside for it when visiting Old Cairo/Coptic Cairo. A few pictures as we exit the museum.

And now we start leaving Old Cairo behind. Where to go next? We have to check the map. There is Mar Girgis metro station right beside us here, but we won’t be able to use it to get to our next location. Instead we just start walking back along the walls of all of the buildings we visited today, noticing one new cemetery we had not noticed, an Armenian Catholic cemetery.

And that is our last picture of Christianity in Egypt for today, we think. Now we walk a bit further past tea shops and souvenir stores to where the neighbourhood actually begins. Then we climb a set of stairs to pass above the metro line, and then we descend into a random neighbourhood. It is quite the difference between both sides of the metro line. On one side you had a busy neighbourhood filled with tourists and shops catering to tourists, and on this side there is almost nobody walking around the houses and we only see one small shop selling a bit of food. But we continue walking randomly, just following the map in the general direction that we would like to go. The only proof we have of walking through this random neighbourhood are these two pictures, hehe. One is something that we believe you should now recognize without us telling you (Makkah) and the other is Al Ahly which is one of the biggest football (soccer) clubs in Egypt. We’re still on our World Cup trip, so of course we always highlight anything to do with football (soccer), hehe.

And just a bit further we find this:

Honestly, this is quite random to find in the middle of this neighbourhood. And, to be clear, we could not get any closer than this to this monument as it was entirely fenced off and there was only this small opening, enough to look inside and see what we see. We didn’t notice any signs or anything to explain what we were looking at. A map that we later looked at said that this is the tomb of Soliman Pasha al-Faransawi. The story we found while looking this up was a little interesting, and again pointed to Egypt’s storied history.

This man was born in France as Joseph Antheime Sève in 1788. He fought in Napoleon’s army at two of his most famous battles, those of Trafalgar and Waterloo. After the war ended in 1815 he resigned from the French army and became a merchant until Muhammad Ali (considered as the founder of modern Egypt) started recruiting European officers to train his newly formed military. At this point Antheime Sève traveled to Egypt, changed his name, and converted to Islam. He then trained the Egyptian military where he became an important person. This can be seen in his tomb (above) being here in Old Cairo. Hopefully this work will finish soon and there will be information available at the location because this is such a random find while walking to our next location. But, we continue walking.

Again we cross a busy road by climbing a steep overpass to then arrive at the Nile. Of course we wanted to go towards the Nile, how could we not? Haha. But we have a goal beyond the Nile, and hopefully it is open and it is cool. Let’s keep walking. We cross over the Nile on this foot bridge. Here we see quite a few people fishing over the edge of the bridge. We would not recommend eating what you catch… just based on what we saw floating on the reeds in the river. But that’s just us.

We walk about another kilometre and eventually make it to the gate of where we would like to go. There we see one older gentleman that is stationed as security and two older women sitting at a table controlling who goes in and who does not. We do not speak any Arabic and only one of the women speaks some English. It is enough to get our point across that we are here to visit the Nile and for them to tell us that we cannot enter with all of our cameras. We say that there isn’t a problem, what should we do? They tell my partner to just leave his backpack there with them. I could see that his mind started to race and consider all outcomes. He finally decided that its fine, and he left it there to go and see what we came to see. We buy our ticket and head on in. One of the ladies yelled at a man that was a bit further in and (we assume) told him to take us to where we were going. We followed the man who opened the locked door for us and we walked in to our goal for the day (after Old Cairo).

Welcome to the Nilometer!

So, you may be wondering what exactly is a nilometer. We’re sure you could figure it out on your own, but it is a way to measure the level of the Nile. As you can imagine, being able to measure the level of the Nile has been an extremely important task since people started living along this great river. But, on an even more important level, being able to predict what the Nile would do was crucial to everyone’s literal survival. Why? Because for the majority of human history the Nile has had three behaviours; first is that of overflowing its banks just the right amount to replace valuable nutrients into the soil and keep the Nile Valley fertile, the second is again the river overflowing its banks but this time in an extreme flood which would be catastrophic, and the third is the opposite of both where the Nile’s level drops and brings drought with starvation to the banks of the Nile. The important task of measuring and predicting the future behaviour of the Nile fell on the shoulders of priests, with many nilometers being hidden from the general public in temples.

Now, this is a specific nilometer on Rhoda Island that dates back to 861 CE, but it was built in the place of an older nilometer, so who really knows how long a nilometer has been at this location? That alone is impressive. But, nilometers have been used for over 5,000 years. Wow! However, we must tell you that although the nilometer dates back to 861 CE, the building that houses it is more modern than that with its domed roof having to be replaced in 1825 after the old one was damaged while under French occupation. From the above pictures you can kind of tell the beauty of the domed roof.

But, how did the nilometer actually work? Along the side of the well there were three inlets for the Nile River to enter the well (these are now sealed). The gigantic column is then marked with different markings to be able to measure the level of the Nile. And, as you can see, there are stairs that go down into the depths of the well so that the priests could descend and get accurate measurements. We asked if we could go down into the well (we had read online that you could) but the man that let us in said that it was closed to the public, so we could not descend. My partner said that he understood and it wasn’t a problem. The guy then made a hand gesture that we immediately understood to mean that if we paid him, we could go down. We said no, that we had paid the entrance fee at the front desk, which should have included everything. He told us that this was a separate price. We said that we would not pay and that that should have been explained at the front desk. The language barrier did not help, but we both understood each other where he wanted money and we didn’t want to give him any, haha.

With that awkwardness over with, we said we would leave. We took the final photo of the inside of the nilometer (above on the right) as the man stared at us, and then left. The man locked the door behind us and immediately disappeared. Not a bad way to discover a nilometer!

Instead of immediately leaving, we decided to take our opportunity and take in the Nile. How could we not? It’s so cool!

But that is that. We were done our visit to the nilometer and we went back out to where the ladies were sitting. They asked us how it went and if we liked it, we said that it was super cool but it would have been nice to be able to go down into the well a bit like we had read online. One lady was surprised we hadn’t gone down. We told her what had happened, that the guy had asked for money and she got quite angry. She immediately got up and told us to follow her, which we obviously did. She found the guy and talked to him quite sternly (we didn’t understand, of course). The guy looked quite sheepish in front of this lady and gave her the keys and immediately disappeared again. Well, this lady opened the nilometer for us again, and told us we could go down into the well until a certain point and to please be careful because there weren’t any guardrails. We said thank you very much and that we would be careful! Off we went!

As you can see, we were both quite happy! The angles that descending into the well allowed us to capture are much better than before. You can really see so many more details, at least we could when we went down there! You can see exactly what the well is like, the three entrances where the water used to flow, the markings on the column allowing a trained person to accurately measure and predict the level of the Nile, you can see the beautiful domed ceiling, and you can even clearly see the wooden beam that holds the column in place. This was a million times better than the first time we entered with that other man. Thankfully we said something on our way out! Shukran to this lady!

As we leave we see this man, Ahmad Al-Fargoniy (also known as Alfraganus). This is one of the rare occasions that we actually knew who we were looking at before doing post-visit research, hehe. He is an astronomer that lived between 798-865 CE and is considered as one of the most important/famous astronomers of his time. Imagine, he was so influential that Christopher Columbus used Al-Farghani’s calculations on his voyages to America (but used the wrong unit of measurement, haha) all those years later. But, not only was he an extremely famous and important astronomer, he was also a very important engineer. What does all of this have to do with the nilometer? Well, it was built off of his plans. Wow. We love stories like these!

Our final picture on Rhoda Island was this little statue of musical notes. Little did we know what we were taking pictures of at the time, but, thankfully we took this picture.

We took the picture because we thought that it looked beautiful. We love finding street art wherever we go. We had an idea that the building behind it must be related to it, so we eventually looked it up. This is why I just said that thankfully we took this picture. The building behind this statue (out of frame) is the Umm Kulthum Museum. Unless you are from Egypt, or maybe from the wider Arab world but of a certain age, you may not recognize this name. We will both admit that neither of us recognized the name, but Rolling Stone ranked her as the 61^st greatest singer of all time. But, that only scratches the surface. Umm Kulthum (1904-1975) seems like she was the icon of her time.

We invite you to look her up for yourself because her life story is just fascinating, but we will give you a quick recap of some of our favourite anecdotes that we learned while writing this post. The first is that she was so popular and well regarded that the royal family of Egypt would go to her public concerts when she performed (they typically asked for private concerts of other artists rather than mixing with the commoners). The second is that after the 1952 revolution her songs were banned because she was associated with the royal family because of her concerts for them and their love for her music. When Gamal Abdel Nasser learned about this he reportedly said “What are they, crazy? Do you want Egypt to turn against us?” Haha. And the third, and related, anecdote is that she would do monthly concerts on the Egyptian radio. Well, Abdel Nasser knew how to get his message out to the masses and would regularly address the nation following her concerts to make sure that the government’s message reached the largest audience possible. Incredible. And we wouldn’t even say that we scratched the surface of her interesting life. But, since we didn’t enter the museum because of sheer ignorance, we don’t think it’s our place to give more information that we did not see for ourselves in the museum.

Well, this ends our time of Rhoda Island. We return to the first table and we have the ladies and the security guard waiting for us with our bag. They pass us back my travel partner’s backpack and remark on how heavy it is, haha. They ask why it’s so heavy and my partner proceeded to pull out each and every camera he was carrying. They were amazed and asked why we had so many. We explained that some were for filming, another was for 360° pictures, and others were to be able to zoom in on far away objects. They looked at us as though we were crazy, haha. Maybe my partner is, who knows, haha. But then it’s back to the bridge and back onto the outer bank of the Nile.

Now begins the rest of our marathon. By this point my partner has already walked 9 kilometres, and we were still far from where we wanted to be. We had a choice to make… do we return to Coptic Cairo, take the metro to Tahrir Square, and wander around central Cairo…? Or… do we just walk along the Nile in that same direction…? Choices, choices. You can imagine which of the two we chose since we both like walking aimlessly, and it’s not every day that you get to walk the banks of the Nile. We had seen the nilometer was dry, so there wasn’t going to be a flood anytime soon, hehe. Off we go! (In actuality, ever since the Aswan Dam was built the levels of the Nile have been controlled).

We walk along the Nile for about one more kilometre until we reach the real reason for choosing to walk. Remember that huge aqueduct we saw the other day in the car as we drove by? Well, we knew we couldn’t stay away. Look at how big my smile is as we approach it!

And my smile gets even bigger as we walk around the front of it. It is SO big. Wow. We navigate crossing the street as we reach the intersection at the corner of the aqueduct so that we can get to the front of it.

So, this is the Cairo Citadel Aqueduct. And the only way we know that is because we luckily took a picture of a map while we visited the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. We walked up beyond where the cars were parked and we couldn’t see any signs or any indication that this was anything of importance. Once again, we just took pictures because it seemed amazing and had to put it into context later.

The Cairo Citadel Aqueduct is exactly that, an aqueduct system that brought fresh water to the Cairo Citadel. Unfortunately for you, we will not make it to the Citadel this time, but we were able to see it as we were driven from the airport to the hotel on our first night there. But back to history. The Mamluks built this around 1311-1312 CE to bring fresh water to the fortifications. This means that the huge tower that we are currently next to (you can kind of see it in the first picture) must have been in the water at one point. Very cool. Many people know about the Roman aqueducts that are still present throughout Europe, and we honestly thought that this would be some more of those. But nope, similar but different. Supposedly the government is in the process of restoring the aqueduct and converting it into a heritage monument for people to know more about it. We 100% agree.

We cross the intersection again and continue along the Nile, always looking at the map. Why always at the map? Because we are just wandering around and want to make sure that if we cross a bridge, we will be able to keep going and eventually cross back, hehe. Well, since we are crossing this bridge you can assume that further along we can cross back, haha.

And just on the other side of this bridge is the Prince Mohamed Ali Palace (also called Al Manial Palace). Don’t worry, it was closed. We won’t be able to enter and give you a super long, detailed report from inside today, haha. But, we did see that this was something on the recommended list of things to do while in Cairo, so we take note of its location (on the same island as the nilometer) and continue walking along the riverbank on the island.

The next bridge is not very far away, and it is in front of a hospital. It is BUSY. There are all kinds of people on this bridge (not like the picture above) with people coming and going, and there are also many vendors set up on the sides of the bridge. We can imagine that if you are going to visit someone in the hospital you would cross this bridge, get some food or some toys, and go and visit the patient. There seem to be even more hospitals on the other side of the bridge as well. As soon as we turn to keep walking along the Nile we are almost alone again.

We keep walking along the banks of the Nile until construction forces us to cross the street and we can no longer see the mighty river behind the sheets of corrugated metal. So sad, an amazing view wasted, haha. Hopefully they are building some sort of water front park or something. Maybe we can come back someday and update ourselves, hehe.

And now we just walk, walk, and walk some more. My partner is getting tired, but two kilometres further on we finally reach Tahrir Square again. We obviously sit to rest a bit since it has been literal hours of walking by this point without sitting down a single time. We just sit here for a while as my partner calls home to let them know that we’re still alive and just wandering the streets of Cairo, haha. At least we have an interesting view.

We mention view, but if you’ve been following our Cairo adventures you can tell that the sun is going down and that just a bit further there is an even better view. Of course we also thought this and headed there after catching our breath. We once again take in the sunset/nightfall over the Nile River.

We cross the bridge and follow a small street along the island side of the Nile. Our plan is to make it to the very southern tip of the island to see the Nile in all its width, so we walk and walk. Eventually the street gets to have almost nobody on it except for us, but we continue. And eventually there isn’t much to the street, just hotels this way and that way. And then we end up at a dead end as it is the entrance to a hotel. Dang! We have to double back and now we’re wondering what all of the hotel security guards must have thought as we walked by, haha. Especially now that they see the same person going back the way they came, haha. There isn’t a single soul walking along this area, and now that makes sense. We make our way back to Tahrir Square.

Alright, we like exploring as much as the next person, but this is just getting out of hand now. My partner has walked over 17 kilometres and it is time to go back to the hotel to rest, haha. We walk back towards the Nile to try to find a place that makes sense to get a car to come pick us up. As we walk back we see this telephone pole / flag pole (?) lying on the ground. Maybe my partner is starting to hallucinate in his tired-state, but he decides to take a picture of it since it is close to Tahrir Square, haha. He imagines that it probably has some meaning or else it would have been picked up, but who knows, haha.

We walk only a few more metres before asking for the car to come pick us up. Unfortunately, we unknowingly sit right outside of an upscale hotel and the car tries to enter the hotel area when they come pick us up. It creates quite a small issue when security asks them what they’re doing there and who they are going to pickup and we come running down the sidewalk trying to get his attention as to not enter the fancy hotel’s valet area, haha. In the end everything is okay and we drive back to the hotel along the Nile for as long as possible before turning into the Giza Governate. We ask the car to drop us off before turning into our hotel so that we can get some more good food and lots of water to drink so that we can rest and get ready for another day in Cairo tomorrow! Good night from Giza!