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I really recommend Lonely Planet (although their maps sometimes leave something to be desired) for info on what to see and what you are seeing.
Then we walked over to Coptic Cairo. It was very peaceful there. A nice change of pace from downtown. Our first stop was the Covenant of St George. Inside you can wear the chain that was used to punish St George. It’s supposed to be healing and miracles happen to the people who touch it. There’s some beautiful tile and woodwork in here.
Next was Church of St Sergius where the holy family hid after fleeing to Egypt. You can only see the staircase leading down to the cave and a tiny bit of the inside (they have mass down there once a year and the rest of the year you can just see a picture they took of the cave). I’m not religious at all but it was really powerful, even for me. A lovely little church to see.
The guards and shopkeepers are pretty helpful. A lot of them often ask where we are from. When we say “Canada” they say “Canada Dry!!” And repeat it every time they see us.
Next up was the Church of St. Barbara. She was beaten to death by her father for trying to convert him to Christianity. It’s just another small pretty church. Next to the church is the Greek Orthodox cemetery. More beautiful artistry here-and stray cats.
People are obviously pretty devoted who live and work there. My partner explored a lot of Coptic Cairo yesterday and he told me that when he was walking over to check out the synagogue, a guard said “What are you doing, there’s nothing over there but a synagogue!” My partner also said there was a man handing out scarves for all the tourbus women to wear who’d shown up in tubetops. He said and I agree “Would you wear a tubetop to a church or graveyard in your own country?”
Then we viewed the Roman Towers built in 98 AD. Usually these are first but we came through a back way to get there.
Lastly we saw the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As. It was the first mosque built in Egypt. Again, pretty incredible when you think about it. I’ve read that the inside is spectacular, but we didn’t feel like getting pushed around by attendants, so we just looked from the outside.
Everything we went to today had an hour or more until closing, but when it got to the hour mark everyone who was working there started pushing people through and out. None of the churches had entrance fees but we did make donations to the poor.
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