Tourist Time

"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?"  As our weeks in Cairo have dwindled into the single digits (wipe those smiles off your faces moms!), Tom and I are realizing just how much we haven't seen and done in this fascinating city.  To ensure that we make the most of our remaining time, we've decided to take one day each weekend to be Egypt tourists.  Last weekend's stops: Citadel of Cairo and Al Azhar Park.

The Citadel of Cairo is a medieval fortress, built over 900 years ago.  For hundreds of years it housed Cairo's rulers, but today it is a tourist site including three mosques, and several palaces turned museums.  It is located on a hill in downtown Cairo, and though we'd seen its extravagant Muhamed Ali mosque on many rides between our neighbourhood and the airport, we'd never gone inside its surrounding wall.  We visited two very different mosques within the walls, the Mosque of al-Nasir Muhammad from the 1300's, and the much larger and more famous Muhamed Ali Mosque (named after the Ottoman commander, not the boxer) from the 1800's.  We also toured the Military museum for at least a half hour, which was at least 25 minutes longer than I stayed interested.

From the Citadel we took an overpriced taxi to Al Azhar Park.  This park is the single strip of green in the beige downtown Cairo landscape.  Developed less than a decade ago, it is Cairo's largest (and probably only) public park.  It felt like a green paradise to us.  

Despite a seemingly vegetarian unfriendly menu, we had a delicious lunch of amazingly fresh bread and Egyptian dips at a picturesque restaurant within the park.  It was so relaxing to be eating on a patio in the sun overlooking green grass, flowers, and trees.  There were kids playing in the water, and we couldn't hear any horns honking.  This may not sound that spectacular to most of you, because for you it's not gone, but Tom and I are in some pretty serious greenery (and quiet) withdrawal. 
 













The park truly is a green island in a sea of sand.   It has lush gardens, colourful flowers, fountains, canals, a lake, and a great view of the Citadel.  
We puttered around the park for a couple of hours before heading to the Nile for a felucca ride to complete a full Cairo tourist day.  We're offering free accommodations for another 7 weeks to any of you who want to be Cairo tourists too.  Otherwise travel vicariously through us as we blog about our weekly highlights.