Ibn Tulun Mosque and Gayer-Anderson Museum Tour
Meet your guide and get picked up from your hotel in Cairo or Giza, then travel by private air-conditioned car to begin your tour.
Visit the Ahmed Ibn Tulun Mosque, the largest mosque in Cairo and one of the city's most worthwhile monuments to explore. Ahmad Ibn Tulun built this vast, sprawling complex to accommodate his troops during Friday prayers. An inscription slab on-site identifies the mosque's completion date as 879 AD. Covering more than six acres, the mosque features small outer courtyards with galleries decorated in intricately carved stucco. These courtyards ensured privacy, separating the sacred interior from the outside world. The mosque's minaret is the only one of its kind in Egypt and is a famous Cairo landmark, with an external staircase on its second story that spirals up to the top.
Continue to Gayer-Anderson in the same area. British major and army doctor Gayer-Anderson received special permission from the Egyptian authorities to live in this group of 16th-century houses adjacent to the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo. From 1935 to 1942, he restored the buildings and filled them with a collection of art and antiques from around Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, and Central Asia. After his death in 1945, Gayer-Anderson donated the property to Egypt, and it was later transformed into the Gayer-Anderson Museum.
Admire the beautiful mosaic fountain set into a marble floor that greets visitors in the museum's reception area. Each room in the maze-like house has its own theme. A silver tea set and lacquered furniture are displayed in the Queen Anne Room, while the Persian Room features beautifully intricate tile work.
Then move on for lunch at a local restaurant before transferring back to your hotel.
