Cairo Museum, Citadel and Churches

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Breakfast:  we have not mentioned this so far.  There are really maybe only 3 ways for us to have breakfast.  (1) Go outside and probably pay a couple-three dollars for some coffee and roll, (2) eat some fruit and leftovers with room coffee, probably the  best choice, or (3) the lazy hurry-up way, spend $20 for a buffet breakfast.  Enough said.  Generally we partook of bran flakes to keep the system health, hummus, yogurt, fruit, and one time a full (e.g. with bacon) breakfast.  More on this subject in Athens.  Speaking of bacon, it is made from beef, since Muslims don’t eat pork.  Looks and tastes about the same.

Today is dedicated to downtown Cairo.  This time we leave prepared for a long day without food, since yesterday we did not eat until 5:00.  We don’t think we can make it to the late afternoon, so we have a plain roll each, two bananas and two apples.  Ha!  Bring on the site seeing!

The first stop is the Cairo Archeological Museum.  Imagine, if you will, strolling through a museum that has near-endless rooms of relics, each of which is probably older than any you have ever seen (4000-5000 years), and most of which you can reach out and touch.  The new museum is under construction, so this is pretty basic, and has not been painted or cleaned up in years.  In some ways it looks more like a warehouse.  I was repeatedly asking Marwa, “Now, is this a reproduction, or is this the real thing?”  The answer was always, “Real thing!”  And remember, they were right next to you.

Statues of numerous pharoahs, papyrus rolls of hieroglyphics in perfect condition, ancient copper and stone tools, the actual gold hood from Tutankhamun’s coffin (you can’t touch that one) –it is really amazing, solid gold, and about two feet tall.  I include here a stock photo of it for you to see. I was trying to remember why I could not find any of my pictures of this, and realized they don’t allow cameras in there.

But I think the most amazing thing was Tut’s coffins.  The first box was wooden with gold paint, the size of a large bedroom.  Next to it was the one that went inside it, slightly smaller.  It was actually too large to go in the door of the first, and had been dropped in from the disassembled top.  Then a third, and a fourth.  I think there were two stone sarcophaguses, two wood body-shaped coffins, and a gold one.  Inside would be the gold helmeted mummy (not on display).  The mummy was covered with gold belts and other items.  This guy really had it good.

Bread and banana break.

Next stop was the Citadel, from the 12th century AD, constructed by Saladin to protect Cairo from the Mongol invasions.  It is on Mokattam Hill, and it remained the heart of Egyptian government until the 19th century.  We go inside the Mohamed Ali Mosque and sit for a while as Marwa gives us some background about Egyptian life, the pillars of Islam, Muslim customs, and more history/architecture tidbits.

The next stop was the “Seven Churches”.  The main thing that we saw here was the “Hanging Church” of Saint Mary the Virgin, so named because it was build on top of one of the towers of the fort.  There is another church, the ancient Saint Serguis Church, built over a basement where according to local reports and tradition, the Holy Family

(remember it is almost Christmas) visited when they fled to Egypt to escape the persecution of Herod.  Tradition or not, it was somewhat moving to imaging being somewhere that Jesus had visited two thousand years ago.

Of course, by now we are hungry because we have not eaten a huge meal in at least 5 hours, so back to the Al-Azhar Park Citadel View Restaurant, main deck.  Remember surprising Sally and crew a couple nights ago?  Same place, different restaurant.  Cream tomato soup, hummus, garlic-yogurt, warm fresh pita, spiced lamb kofta and shish-ka-bob, fries, Coke,  rice pudding.  Oh my!

Extremely bad traffic coming back to the hotel.  Sort of a reverse trip of the one we took to get to the restaurant Sunday night, through the bazaar area, the bright shopping area, and all that.  Apparently there has been no resolution of the traffic problems.

Then, of course, dinner out with Bill – this time to a local restaurant called Taboula. Also very tasty. By now we have been in Eqypt 4 days and have each gained 5 pounds. At the end of this day, we resolve never to eat again!