Tourists walking towards the Saladin Citadel. This is a wide open area near the parking location of the Citadel.
People walking towards the Saladin Citadel, fairly close to the parking at the location. Like many of the tourist locations in Egypt, the parking is located at some distance away, and one needs to walk over a distance, and through a security setup (because of the past history of terrorist attacks on tourists) to get inside the monument. Palm trees are often found in Egypt, since they seem to do well in the hot climate. The Saladin Citadel is built on the Mokattam hill near the center of Cairo, and is a famous tourist attraction. It is a well preserved site, with mosques and other buildings. Saladin is the most famous historic Arabic ruler, and he fortified this citadel in the 12th century to protect it against attack. The Citadel was build to be the heart of a defensive fortification, and was the center of Egyptian power till the 19th century, when the power was moved to the Abdin Palace in the 1860's. The Citadel contains 3 mosques, and some Citadel provides a great view of the city of Cairo. The original aim of Saladin was to build a wall that would encompass both Cairo and Fustat. The wall took a number of years to build. As an effort to provide water to the Citadel, Saladin had also built a deep well, the Well of Joseph (can still be seen today), and from there, the water was moved all over the Citadel. Then, another ruler, al-Nasir Muhammed improved the water system and also constructed the mosque, the Mosque of Nasir in the year 1318. Another mosque was built between the years 1828 and 1848, called the Mosque of Muhammed Ali, and is located at the highest point of the Citadel. This mosque replaced the earlier Mosque of Nasir as the state mosque. In addition, there are 2 other mosques located in the Citadel.
Size: 5940px × 3960px
Location: Saladin Citadel, Cairo, Egypt
Photo credit: © Ashish Agarwal / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: africa, african, architecture, attraction, beautiful, cairo, citadel, culture, egypt, image, men, outdoors, photo, picture, saladin, sightseeing, tourism, tourist, tourists, trees, women
