8-Hour Cairo Cave Church Tour with Garbage City and City of the Dead

The journey

Trip highlights

• 01 Visit the famous Cave Church of St. Simon carved into the Moqattam Mountain
• 02 See the largest cave church with its 20,000-seat amphitheatre
• 03 Pass through Cairo's Garbage City and learn the history of its Coptic Christian community
• 04 Explore the fascinating City of the Dead beneath the Mokattam Hills

Discover a different side of Cairo on this 8-hour tour to the Cave Church of St. Simon, Garbage City, and the City of the Dead. Visit the famous monastery complex carved into the Moqattam Mountain, including the largest cave church with its vast 20,000-seat amphitheatre. Pass through Manshiyat Naser to learn the history of Cairo's "Garbage People" community and how they have supported the city's informal sanitation system for decades. The experience ends with a visit to the fascinating City of the Dead, one of Cairo's most unusual historic cemeteries.

The Monastery of St. Simon the Tanner is the largest and has an amphitheatre with a seating capacity of 20,000.

From the itinerary

At a glance

What this trip includes

Duration 8 Hours

Tour type Private

Activity level Easy

Accommodation Not included

Transport Included

Wheelchair access Not applicable

City Cairo

Languages English, French

Day by day

The itinerary

1

Day 01

Cave Church, Garbage City, and the City of the Dead

• Pick up from your hotel at 10:00 A.M. and start the tour. First, visit the famous Cave Church of St. Simon in Cairo. There are seven cave churches carved into the nearby Moqattam Mountain. The Monastery of St. Simon the Tanner is the largest and has an amphitheatre with a seating capacity of 20,000. It is worth a visit if you are interested in seeing something different in Egypt.
• Then, pass by Garbage City in Cairo, located in a local neighbourhood called Manshiyat Naser, or "Garbage City in Cairo," a slum settlement located to the southeast of Cairo. Its inhabitants are affectionately known as the "Garbage People" because they have sustained themselves for decades as Cairo's unofficial sanitation crew. The Garbage People, comprising mostly Coptic Christians, first immigrated to Cairo in the 1930s in search of big-city dreams and land under their feet. Being very poor and without a solid plan, they survived in whatever way they could, living in makeshift housing and recycling the city's compostable waste products by feeding them to their pigs. Today, Cairo's Garbage People make ends meet by going door to door to collect people's trash for a nominal fee, which is then brought back to their Garbage City neighbourhoods.
• See the City of the Dead, an Islamic necropolis and cemetery below the Mokattam Hills in southeastern Cairo, and have lunch before the tour ends.

The route

Where you'll travel

The fine print

Trip details

What's Included

• Round-trip transfer from and to your destination in a private air-conditioned vehicle
• English-speaking Egyptology tour guide
• All entrance fees to all the mentioned sites as per the itinerary
• Lunch at a local restaurant
• Bottled water during your trip
• All taxes and service charges

What's Not Included

• Any extras not mentioned in the itinerary
• Tipping

Know before you go

• You will pass through Garbage City without getting out of the car, as the area is almost full of garbage and has an awful smell that can cause illness.

Logistics

Meeting & route

Meeting point

Cairo, Egypt

Tour start

Cairo, Cairo Governorate, Egypt

Tour ends at the same location as the start point.