CAIRO

I visited Cairo on a group trip in 1983 through all of Egypt. We were on Easter days with 45° but we could tolerate it very well because it was dry heat and then they were celebrating it too, all dressed up. We immediately went to Giza to see the pyramids of Cheops, Menkaure and Chefren dating back to 2500 BC and the Sphinx which impressed me a lot and it was all deserted apart from a few shops selling souvenirs and instead now it seems to me that the city has expanded all around After all, Cairo is the most populous African city with around 15 million inhabitants. An Egyptian proposed to me to take the photo on the camel, then a disproportionate amount of money to get me off while the camel trotted and up high with the humps and at a height it is not a safe place, I had to pay it, but I negotiated and managed to pay the fee half. Then we went to the Khan el Khalili souk with the spice stalls, jewellery, crafts and clothes shops and you always end up buying caftans and head scarves with colored strings which then end up in the attic when you get home. Naturally we went to the Egyptian Museum where you can see many mummies, objects found in tombs and above all the treasure of Tutankhamun the pharaoh who died young at 18 and whose tomb was discovered by chance intact unlike the others which had all been burgled. I remember that we also went to see the Azhar Mosque, the nearby park and the cemetery where many Cairons lived with little houses built between the tombs. You can also visit the Coptic neighborhood within the walls of the fortress of Babylon, there are a couple of beautiful churches. Then there is the Citadel with Saladin's medieval fortress to defend the Crusaders and a UNESCO heritage site. Then the Alabaster Mosque, covered with this precious material. In this regard I remember a comical anecdote. A lady in my group had bought an alabaster statuette and showed it to everyone at lunch in a restaurant. The Egyptian waiter arrives, looks at her and asks: how much did you pay for her? Her: 150 dollars. Him: I can give you 30 for that money. Her: but it's made of alabaster! He takes it in his hand, scratches it with a nail and says: fake alabaster on the outside, plaster on the inside! It is worth seeing the beautiful Gawhara palace with the golden mirror and then the Muhammad Ali hall from where he ruled Egypt. You can make an excursion to visit the large city of Alexandria in Egypt on the Nile Delta where you can visit the Roman amphitheater, the catacombs and the library with 8 million books which replaces the old library burned in the city fire. Egyptian dishes: koshari, the well-known kebab (roasted mutton or lamb), falafel (spiced and fried legume balls) and shawarma (thinly sliced marinated meat), but also shish tawook (grilled chicken) and kofta (grilled meatballs), kushari (soup of bunches of herbs with garlic and coriander fried in butter), molokhiyya (dark green soup of mallow leaves) we drink karkadè, an infusion of hibiscus flowers with sugar, Turkish coffee, sugar cane juice found in the streets and obtained by passing the canes through iron rollers, aniseed liqueur and date grappa ​