Yesterday was my day off. I didn’t have a plan in mind for where to go or what to do but I only wanted to walk and walk and explore so I decided to go to Citadel of Salah al-Din. It’s a big wide enormous place in Cairo full of many other places inside of its complex, some of which I didn’t visit before, so I thought: it’s a perfect match for what I want!
I took, let me count, three buses and walked for over an hour in between stops crossing a total distance of 40 km from where I live in 6th of October City to where the Citadel is near al-Moqattam Mountain on the outer edge of Cairo! Crazy, isn’t it! I should probably write a post about how the meaning of distances for Cairo residents is way different (and wider) than all the other Egyptians!
Anyways, I finally got to the citadel, bought the ticket to find out it was raised by 400%! (It was for 5 EGP last year, now it’s 20 EGP!) I asked about al-Gawhara Palace and The Military Museum, the two places which I haven’t visited before, but they were closed for restoration!
I started to think it wasn’t my happiest luckiest day as I ended up visiting the one and only mosque in there, Mosque of Muhammad Ali, which I have already seen for many times before! Trying to cheer myself up, I said the citadel is still a giant place and I’ll get to walk and walk and explore. I may come across something I haven’t realized before. Who knows!
So I walked to the mosque, which is so beautiful and lovely by the way, took some pictures from different perspectives and angles, stayed there for some time and then left. As I was going down what seemed like a ramp, I looked up and saw a minaret that I didn’t see before. I followed the walls of the building to which the minaret was attached and I was in front of a mosque! I read the sign and it said: Mosque of Sultan Muhammed Nassir ibn Qalawun!
Are you kidding me?!! I have always wanted to visit this mosque and never knew where it was located! Let aside having to google it, but I have already come to the citadel many times over the past two years, visited Mosque of Muhammed Ali, gone down the same ramp and have never seen this mosque! Was I blind?!
I couldn’t be happier with my find. I took a tour in the mosque and realized how it’s different in architecture from Mosque of Muhammad Ali but so similar to Mosque of Amr ibn al-As in Old Cairo. I captured some photos to document this beautiful place that I found totally by coincidence and to always remind myself that the best moments happen when they are unplanned!
