Our Last Days in Cairo, Egypt
Updated: Mar 25, 2022
After visiting the pyramids in Giza, Dahshur, and Saqarra we then moved to a new hotel in the center of Cairo, for our last days in Egypt. We had plans to visit museums and see more of the local life in this city, and what better way to experience it than being right downtown.
In case you are new here, we are Will and Katy. We are a travel couple that is traveling around the world. Without surprise, we liked the feel of the city more than being in Giza near the pyramids. The food was more affordable in the city and the people kept to themselves, or maybe we blended in more. Either way, we felt more comfortable here. Don’t get us wrong, it was amazing to walk up to the roof of our hotel in Giza and see the ancient ruins right in front of our eyes, but a few days surrounded by touts trying to sell us tours was plenty.
One thing we didn’t expect was for it to be cold in Cairo, even though it was January we didn’t think it would get below 60° F and that we would be cold in our hotel room. Kindly enough our hotel, Columbia Sky Hotel, found a space heater for us to use. What couldn’t be fixed was the number of mosquitoes in our hotel room! To a mosquito, I taste like sweet sweet nectar. I slept fully under the covers, so I wouldn’t get bit AND because I was cold! Good thing we were there less than a week.
On our first day, we had to figure out the covid test situation for our next country, but the cheapest place to get a test in Cairo was at a hospital an hour's walk away. Which we didn’t mind, it allowed us to explore the city. On the way there we walked through the center of the city and on the return back we walked along the Nile. I took notice that this part of Cairo was much cleaner than the west of the Nile. We did stop and ask around about short boat trips along the Nile, but they were charging too much. We’ll save a ride down the Nile for our next trip to Egypt. (We didn’t get to Luxor or Alexandria, there is still so much to see).
The next day was our market filming day! We went to visit the Largest Bazaar in Cairo, Khan el-Khalili. It was filled with shops, vendors, and plenty of things to buy. We made a trip to this Bazaar a couple of times while staying here. We filmed a three-part series, where we went on a hunt for a Mo Salah Jersey, our patches, and found other treasures along the way. (Video links at the end of the blog).
On another day we visited The Egyptian Museum. This museum holds many artifacts from King Tut. It was in a separate enclosed room. We couldn’t take any photos, but it was incredible to see with our own eyes. I geeked out when I saw a massive structure of King Ramsees II, who was the pharaoh at the time of Moses and the Exodus of the Israelites. Something that caught us off guard going through this museum was how disorganized it all seemed. Not many descriptions of objects and crates all around, as if they were not ready for visitors. We do know there is a new museum being built, perhaps they are preparing to move some of these artifacts to another museum.
On our final day, we went to visit The Hanging Church, in the south part of Cairo. It is called the Hanging Church because it was built on two of the ancient towers of the Roman fortress (Fortress of Babylon), which was built by Emperor Trajan in the second century AD. The Hanging Church is considered the oldest church still surviving in Egypt.
In the same vicinity is the Church of St Sergius and Bacchus. This church is known as the Cavern Church. This church is built over a cave where locals say Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus stayed for three months after fleeing to Egypt to escape persecution from King Herod of Judea. As we entered the space there was a well they say Jesus and his family used and then steps down into the cave, which we entered.
This was an incredible way to end our time in Egypt. Such a historical place from 4500-year-old ancient pyramids, to Biblical history coming to life for us. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Egypt.
Until next time... What could possibly be next?
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