Coptic Cairo absolutely has to be on your itinerary if you are travelling to Cairo, regardless of your religious affiliations. I am not a particularly religious person, however visiting some of the sites here was a deeply profound experience. With the architecture, the art work & grandiosity you feel a part of the history. It is difficult to articulate the intimacy of Coptic Cairo without travelling there yourself.
Within the Coptic Cairo area, you will visit the Fortress of Babylon, Coptic Museum, Hanging Church (Not named because they hanged someone important there!), Church of St George, Ben Ezra Synagogue, the site where The Holy Family stayed & many other Churches of high significance in the faith.
top tips!
There are a collection of different sites within the Coptic Cairo area, so it is really important to do some research ahead of time about which sites you want to see. I didn’t do this & missed out on some of them, as they are spread out in various locations without one obvious route to follow.
Because I hadn’t done enough research & it was almost 40 degrees, I was wearing shorts, with my legs showing.
These sites are incredibly important within the Christian faith & whilst everyone is welcome to attend, they do expect you to dress modestly in some of the really special buildings.
I was given a robe to cover up, however as you can see, I was too fat to fasten it & too tall for it to cover my legs. I also had to tip for the privilege, having already given a significant donation!💰
Important Information
| Opening times | All of the different sites have different opening times & some of them close quite early, so it is advisable to map out which places close earliest & attend them first. |
| Entry fee | The Coptic Museum was 100EGP, which was under £2GBP, I would advise to pay on arrival & don’t give an expensive tour operator exorbitant fees. Most of the churches etc do not charge for entry, however there are lots of donation boxes should you wish to contribute. |
| Time to complete visit | If you want to visit every site here, it could be a whole days event. If you are just hoping to take a look around & get some photos, you could whizz through in 2-3 hours. |
| Getting there | Uber is ridiculously cheap, however if you prefer public transport the Metro is fairly modern, you take line 1 & get off at Mar Girgis, which drops you right in the heart of the action (Some of the Metro’s are sex segregated between carriages). Depending on where you stay, it is likely within walking distance, however you then risk people trying to sell you things etc. |
| Tours | I didn’t take a tour, but for something of this size & magnitude, you can find lots of tour operators offering different packages online. I wouldn’t recommend these as the area is so beautiful & you want to take a leisurely stroll around, working to a tour guide’s timeline might not be the best experience. |
I am completely new to blogging & only set this up to help people out on their journeys. If you have any questions about the article or feedback, please do leave a comment & I will get back to you. You can also subscribe for free to get a notification when my next post goes live. Thanks for taking the time to read through ❤️
Tyler's Travel Tales 