Saint Catherine's Monastery and Mount Sinai

UNESCO World Heritage Site: Saint Catherine Area (2002). The Oldest Continuously Inhabited Christian Monastery In The World, Built Under Justinian Around The Site Held To Be The Burning Bush, With An Icon Collection And A Library Second Only To The Vatican'S, And A Working Mosque Inside Its Walls · Saint Catherine, South Sinai

A fortified monastery has stood at the foot of Mount Sinai since the sixth century, built on the spot where Christian tradition places the Burning Bush, and it has never once been abandoned - which makes it the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery in the world. Inside the granite walls are a basilica with its original roof timbers, an icon collection unmatched outside Mount Athos because the desert and the monastery's long protection spared it from the iconoclasts, a library second in importance only to the Vatican's, and a working mosque built in the eleventh century that is part of why the place survived. Behind it the mountain rises to 2,285 metres, climbed through the night by pilgrims and walkers who want to be on the summit for sunrise, either up the camel path or the three thousand-odd Steps of Repentance. Come for one or the other and you will have missed half of it; come for both and plan two days.

In the high Sinai mountains at about 1,570 metres, with the Mount Sinai paths starting behind the monastery walls, Saint Catherine, South Sinai, Egypt

The monastery admits visitors on weekday mornings only, for a few hours, and is closed on Fridays, Sundays and Orthodox feast days - this catches more visitors out than anything else in Sinai, so check the day before you build a trip around it. The chapel of the Burning Bush and the library are not generally open to visitors; the basilica, the icon museum and the courtyard are. Mount Sinai is climbed at any hour and the traditional start is around midnight to reach the summit for dawn; Bedouin guides are normally required and are arranged in the village. ONE THING TO CONFIRM FIRST: the monastery's legal position over its land was the subject of an Egyptian court ruling in 2025 that drew international concern, and while visitor access has continued, it is worth checking before travelling.

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