A very sumptuous mausoleum, Cairo

Right next to the family who was living in the cemetery is this mausoleum which is as sumptuous as a palace or a mosque. I think the family of Sultan Mohammad Ali is buried here. It has the bodies of his whole family, all his wives (I forgot how many) and all his children. We paid the custodians 40 Le to get in for the both of us. Obviously these are friends of our taxi driver. One of the custodians acted as our guide and he later demanded more money for himself. He told me nobody goes there, only a few tourists. The city of the dead is a fascinating place. It is OK to visit with a guide, a taxi driver as a guide is perfect. He can take you to places that the guide books either are silent about or warns you against going. We met people on the plane who was going to Luxor who told us there is nothing to see in Cairo. I guess if you only count the museum and the pyramids, there is nothing else. On the contrary, there are a lot of nooks and crannies especially in Islamic Cairo that are so fascinating and interesting. Not all mosques are alike, even there, each has their own history and are very different. We've been to a few and some are so fascinating. Islamic architecture and Islamic art is so different and that is something to see. We love all the mosques that we've visited.

A Venetian glass chandelier.

The gorgeous detail....

Imagine all this and more were all done in a day. There was so much to see and to do. Now that I have time to reprocess my trip, I can say, it was quite wonderful. The key is to use a taxi driver to act as a guide. He takes you there, he waits for you, you can take your time and he gets you to the next place. This is the best arrangement. You don't need any guide in some places like the Egyptian museum, the spice market and Coptic Cairo. Coptic Cairo is a pretty small area, I've read on the Internet that when the Christians tried to expand, they were met by violent (even blood was shed) protests by the Muslims. Coptic Cairo is an enclosed area and therefore very compact.

Tourism is the main part of the economy and there are special tourism police at every tourist venue especially the Coptic Christian area. There are cop cars, armored trucks and bomb disposal trucks parked at the Coptic area. I don't know how safe that is because the day before our visit there was an explosion at the spice market, Khan al Khalili, a French tourist was killed, 7 German tourists were injured. There were no tourists there on the day we visited, we didn't know about the explosion. We only heard about is after we visited.