Islamic Cairo Major Sights Tour

Highlights

Inclusions

Itinerary

1. As you may enter working mosques, please dress modestly – long, loose clothes that cover arms and legs – and wear shoes that are easy to remove: women should also bring a scarf to cover their hair. Please note that a few sites close to the public at 5pm. You'll start your tour of some of the highlights of historic Cairo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, by strolling through the Citadel, built by Saladin, founder of the Ayubbid dynasty.

   30 min

2. As you only have 2-5 hours for this tour, you'll admire most of the sites from outside: either choose 3 to 4 monuments to visit or ask your guide for recommendations.From the citadel, you'll see the Mosque of Sultan Hassan, the Refaie Mosque, the Giza pyramids (if it's not foggy), the Ibn Tulun Mosque (the oldest mosque in the city surviving in its original form, and the largest mosque in Cairo in terms of land area), and the famous Cairo tower.

   30 min

3. Pause for a while to absorb the full scale of the Giants: Sultan Hassan & Refaie religious archaeological complex, built at the middle of the fourteenth century.

   30 min

4. Stroll through the Alabaster mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha, Cairo's best-preserved & most iconic, most beautiful mosque, to the al-Nasir Muhammad mamluk Mosque. Enjoy a feast of historic religious & military architecture as you admire the monuments inside this great fortress.

   30 min

5. You'll finish your tour with a couple of Cairo's better-known mosques: the Mosque of Abu Dahab (the father of Gold. A wealthy ottoman army leader who once "or more than once" threw gold over the poor as means of charity, hence his name), and the 10th-century al-Azhar Mosque, home to one of the oldest surviving Islamic universities in the world.

   30 min

6. Your final stop is the notorious downtown: you may wish to enjoy lunch or a non-alcoholic drink at one of the famous Restaurants and Cafes of this lively vivid buzzing Cairo City Center (the Paris along the Nile) Downtown, Cairo.

   30 min

7. The Citadel of Cairo or Citadel of Saladin is a medieval Islamic-era fortification in Cairo, Egypt, built by Salah ad-Din (Saladin) and further developed by subsequent Egyptian rulers. It was the seat of government in Egypt and the residence of its rulers for nearly 700 years from the 13th to the 19th centuries. Its location on a promontory of the Mokattam hills near the center of Cairo commands a strategic position overlooking the city and dominating its skyline. At the time of its construction, it was among the most impressive and ambitious military fortification projects of its time. It is now a preserved historic site, including mosques and museums.

   1.5 h

Cancellation

Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the experience starts, for a full refund.

Reviews

Ratings come from 8 reviews collected by our booking partner. They are travellers' own words, in the order they were written — never reordered to flatter the experience.

Know before you go

How it compares in Cairo

• Its from-price is 44% below the median of the 10229 experiences we list in Cairo.
• It is shorter than most of them.
• By number of reviews it ranks 1929 of 10229.
• The operator lists free cancellation on it.

About Cairo

Cairo is Egypt's sprawling capital on the Nile, where the Pyramids of Giza meet medieval mosques, busy bazaars and the treasures of the pharaohs.

On the western edge of the city, the Pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx rise from the desert plateau, with the step pyramid of Saqqara and the ruins of Memphis further south. Cairo's great museums, the Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square and the vast Grand Egyptian Museum beside the plateau, hold artefacts spanning thousands of years.

Top-ranked sights in Cairo: Egyptian Museum (Museum of Egyptian Antiquities), Saqqara (Sakkara), Khan El-Khalili.

See all 10229 experiences in Cairo