Looming over the City of Cairo is a mammoth fortress called the Citadel. Built by Salah Ad Din, the famous Kurdish warrior who fought and eventually defeated the Crusaders, the Citadel has housed a succession of Egyptian rulers including the Ottomans, the Mamlukes, and the British.


Tradition has it that Salah Ad Din selected the site for its health benefits. He hung raw meat in several prospective locations. He built the fortress on the site where the meat stayed fresh the longest.


These pictures show on a tiny snippet of the entire fortress which probably covers a square mile or so of real estate. The view of the city from the ramparts is spectacular. (This picture scarcely does it justice).

The Citadel's most prominent feature is the silver-domed Mosque of Mohammad Ali (that's Mohammed Ali, Egypt's ruler in the early 1800's, not the boxer who took his name).

Here, seated on the floor in the Mosque, a local tour guide gives us a run down on the site's history. He also was full of helpful information and lore about Islamic faith and traditions, so we were able to have a lively discussion.

Here's the view "up" from inside the Mosque of Mohammed Ali.

You can't see it in this picture, but the dome contains one of the Mosque's several historic oddities: Centered in the tip-top of the dome is a Star of David. Turns out that one of the architects Mohammed Ali hired to design and decorate the place had Jewish origins. He left his mark, and it remains to this day!