The Citadel of Saladin

UNESCO World Heritage Site: Historic Cairo (1979). The Fortress Saladin Began In 1176 And The Seat Of Egyptian Government For Close To Seven Hundred Years, Crowned By Muhammad Ali'S Ottoman Style Mosque With Its Silver Domes And Alabaster Courtyard, And Holding The Best Single View Over Cairo To The Pyramids On A Clear Day · Cairo, Cairo

Saladin began the Citadel in 1176 on a spur of the Muqattam hills, because whoever held that rock held Cairo, and for close to seven hundred years whoever governed Egypt governed it from inside these walls. The Mamluks ruled here, the Ottomans garrisoned it, Muhammad Ali massacred the Mamluk beys in its courtyard in 1811 and then built the mosque that now defines the skyline - a deliberately Ottoman building with silver domes, two pencil minarets and an alabaster courtyard, put there to announce that Egypt was looking to Istanbul rather than to Cairo's own Mamluk past. Inside the walls there are also the much older al-Nasir Muhammad mosque, a well sunk ninety metres through rock, and a set of military, police and carriage museums of varying interest. What everyone actually comes for is the terrace, which on a clear day gives you the whole medieval city below and the pyramids on the horizon.

On the Muqattam spur above the medieval city, 3 km south-east of Khan el-Khalili, Cairo, Cairo, Egypt

Daylight hours daily with a single ticket covering the enclosure and most of the museums inside, shorter in winter, and WHICH MUSEUMS ARE OPEN VARIES - the military, police and carriage collections have each been closed for periods. The Muhammad Ali mosque receives visitors outside prayer times with shoes removed, and closes for prayer and sometimes for restoration; covered shoulders and knees are required and a scarf for women. The site is large, walled and entirely exposed, so the terrace in the middle of the day in summer is punishing. WHETHER THE PYRAMIDS ARE VISIBLE FROM THE TERRACE DEPENDS ENTIRELY ON THE HAZE and is nobody's fault. Parking is at the gate and taxis wait there; the walk up from the medieval city below is steep and not pleasant in heat.

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