Well, the in-laws are safely back home in the US. Froody and I ejoyed their visit and are glad they had a good time.
We all spent a whole day at the Citadel together. Like much of Cairo you find a lot of monuments from a lot of different times in history all clumped together. The walls were built by Salah al-Din to protect the city from the crusaders, around 1180. Inside there are two mosques and two museums. The Mosque of Sultan al-Nasir was built in the early 1300s and is an empty shell as all its marble was carted off to Turkey later on. It's still great to wander in, and I love the striped arches and wooden ceiling. The military museum was OK. The most interesting part was the building itself, built for a sultan's harem (his wives and children), but we didn't want to pay the camera fee so there aren't any pix.
The police museum was one none of us had any interest in, but the view from the terrace was pretty sweet. Last thing we did before leaving was to go into the Mohammed Ali Mosque which sits on top of a hill and looks down on the city of Cairo. (Sadly, with all the tall buildings you have to be high up and pretty close to the Citadel to see it watching you.) It was built in the 1800s and its interior is the most beautiful I've seen. Mohammed Ali is still there, in fact. By now it was well after noon and the sun was coloring the limestone on the outside of the mosque and playing in the shadows.
We decided we weren't tired enough so we walked the 1.2 km to Al-Azhar park to show off the view to Froody's parents. It's wonderful standing there at dusk and hearing the call to prayer reaching up to you from all over town.
And, we all got a kick at watching the young people act like young people seem to do all over the world- hang out and play with their cell phones!
4 comments:
Kids hanging out here crack me up. I don't know why but seeing these teens hold hands and look longingly at eachother on bridges in full view of everyone is sweet. :)
When do you guys leave Cairo? We should meet for coffee or something before you go.
it's reassuring to see that people are people wherever you go. these kids are just like the ones i taught in the usa.
heck ya- let's meet for coffee. we are leaving early next week. :-( on the one hand i will miss having a home and routine but am looking forward to meeting more people and seeing new places. :-)
sssoooooo......cairo typ0, is there any chance my husband and i can crash the thanksgiving potluck you're going to?
The Mohammed Ali mosque is a Turkish style Mosque! Note that the Turkish style one is more ornate. When you go to Turkey you're going to fall in love with the architecure, history,a nd the natural landscape!
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