Egypt Travel Guía

 The city was founded in the year 968 and at first it was called The Qahira. In the XIIth century, the city of Cairo prospered and grew. It turned into the center of the commerce between Europe and East and into one of the props of the Moslem culture. In the year 1340, almost 500.000 persons were living in this area, five times more than the quantity that he was inhabiting the original city.

Little by little, the city of Cairo was growing more than any other city of Africa, Europe or Asia Minor. In 1517, it fell down under the mastery of the Turks. In 1798 it was taken by Napoleón, but the British and Turkish forces expelled it three years later and the city was returned to the Turks. The Britons, nevertheless, preserved a special interest in Cairo. During the XIXth century, the city was growing like a modern European city.

Cairo spreads from the East of the Nile up to the hills of Mokattam, which separates it from the brown of the desert. On the roofs of its houses, there rise the domes and minarets of hundreds of mosques. From the minarets, the muezzins call the believers to be said five times a day.

Cairo is a chaotic miscellany of monuments, sounds and smells. It is full of a volatile and boisterous life, with an intensity that it exhausts as much as it invigorates the visitor. Also there is a contrast between the ancient monuments and the modern and cosmopolitan art. In general, the streets of Cairo are full of cars thrown by donkeys, mosques and merchants, while the camels weave its way between the pyramids that rise for the outskirts.

In the streets of Cairo, the tourists can practise the historical art of the negotiation when they do its buys of trinkets, perfumes and spices, in one of the biggest bazaars of the world. Other of its main attractions is the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, which keeps treasures of the grave of Tutankamon.