Private Half-Day Tour to Islamic Sights in Cairo

Your private historian guide will collect you from your Cairo hotel in air-conditioned comfort at 8-8:30am to begin your half-day tour of Islamic Cairo: the exact duration will depend upon your interests. Your first stop will be the fortified Citadel of Saladin, the walled city built by the great warrior sultan to defend against 12th-century Crusaders: three of its grand medieval gates are still preserved, and it remains the heart of UNESCO-listed Old Cairo.

Just a short stroll from the Citadel are two classic Egyptian mosques. The Sultan Hassan Mosque, built in the fourteenth century, is one of the largest historic mosques in the world: admire its towering walls and slender minaret. The ornate interior incorporates four separate madrasas. Facing it is the Al-Rifa'i Mosque, built during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a conscious homage to medieval Islamic design, especially the Mamluk period: among Egyptian royalty buried on the site is King Farouk, the last king of Egypt.

Once the tour is complete, you'll return to your hotel by air-conditioned vehicle in time for lunch.