Day 9 – Coptic Cairo

After going to bed reasonably early last night again, we were once again able to rise early and get our day started.  Fun fact – breakfast at our hotel is served from 7-10, and it turns out if you get there before 9:40 they still have cream you can use for coffee and plenty more toast and rolls.  We ate, walked to a metro station we don’t usually use, and took it five stops to the entrance of Coptic Cairo.

First we walked around the Church of St. George.  It was kind of amusing to go inside and see a variety of things with which Patrick and I are (or should be) much more familiar.  As we looked around the rest of the Coptic area though, I realized that it is possible after taking history of Islamic civilizations and the middle east that I may know more about the genesis of Islam than I do that of Christianity.  (For example, I could name you the first four caliphs that succeeded the prophet Mohammad, and I could name the four gospels, but we came across a painting of the twelve disciples and it dawned on me that I don’t know that many of them.  Further reason for me to read the Bible sometime soon.)

The wooden casing on the wall is what
covers the windows and only allows
the people inside to peer out

After the church we went through a Coptic museum.  It was the only place all day we had to pay to enter, which meant we successfully went way under budget over the whole day.  The museum was nice though, and set up to where you kind of had to walk through the whole thing.  It was mostly chronological and had a variety of artifacts from different areas of Egypt, not to mention reasonably informative.  What I found most interesting though were some of the windows in the building (I’ve included a photo).  You can only peer out of these windows, and evidently they were quite common in Egypt until recently.  (In a novel we read in class, Palace Walk, it was explained that women often sat behind these windows and watched the world go by since they weren’t allowed out in public by themselves, if at all.)  It was neat to actually see and experience what that may have been like.

Following the museum we visited the Hanging Church (so named because it is suspended over a part of a Babylon Fortress - of which there is also a photo).  There is actually a part of the church you can look down over what apparently used to be a waterfall or some kind of moat (perhaps a waterfall in a moat).  The church’s history dates back to the 4^th century, which isn’t near as old as other things we’ve seen this trip, but it’s about as old as Christian sites come.  From there we moved on to two other churches.

The archaic Babylon fortress

First was the Church of St. Sergius. Probably the oldest church in the compound (all of Coptic Cairo is enclosed in one compound), its pillars date back to the 3^rd and 4^th century.  Also, it is supposedly built over the cave to which Mary, Joseph, and Jesus fled to escape the persecution of King Herod.  You can’t go in, but they allow you to look down a staircase into said cave and there are photos of it before they cleaned it out and drained it.  Second was the Church of St. Barbara.  This church is also reasonably old and named after a girl who suffered torment when she tried to convert her father.  It was under some construction so we just poked our heads in.  Outside, however, a guide pointed us to a well marking the spot where it is claimed Moses was pulled from the reeds of the Nile (see picture…nothing particularly exciting to look at though).

Our last stop of the day was at the oldest mosque in Cairo (obviously not part of the Coptic compound).  However, we arrived during the midday prayer, and there were hundreds of people walking in, so we didn’t feel like it was our place to invite ourselves inside and take a look.  Instead we took some pictures of the walls (and the parking lot, it was packed) and headed back to the metro. 

On the steps of the Hanging Church.  Yes, I haven't shaved since arriving,
and yes, I'm wearing a t-shirt I have owned for probably 8 years.

Back near our hotel we decided to try the Pei King restaurant for lunch.  It has been a little difficult finding places to eat during Ramadan, especially ones where we don’t feel bad for eating in front of people who are attempting to fast.  We were skeptical about the Chinese restaurant, but it actually turned out to be rather nice, if not one of the more expensive meals we have eaten.  Having not traveled to China I don’t know what actual Chinese food is like, but this food tasted just like America Chinese food, if not a little bit better.

The rest of the afternoon we took off and decided to lounge and rest for our pending trip to the Sinai Peninsula.  We at dinner at the restaurant in the hotel, and as we were finishing a guy who was probably 25 or so came over and asked if we were Americans.  He ended up being a student about to start grad school and we sat and talked with him for an hour or so about Cairo and what he was planning on seeing.  Unfortunately we were leaving the next day and by the time we would get back he was going to leave for Luxor, so we may not see him again, but we were proud of ourselves for making friends.

I’m ending this post here because all we did after dinner was blog and go to bed, and there’s a much better post (hopefully) about our trip to Sinai coming.