Egypt Guide
The Red Sea Coast and Eastern Desert
The Red Sea monasteries
Secreted amid the Red Sea Hills, Egypt's oldest monasteries - dedicated to St Paul and St Anthony - trace their origins back to the infancy of Christian monasticism, observing rituals that have scarcely changed over sixteen centuries. Tough neither monastery is directly accessible by public transport, they can be reached in several ways. The main thing to realise is that a quick visit is impossible, and no one is in any hurry once you get there. If you feel OK about travelling with devout believers, it's best to join the pilgrim tours arranged from Cairop by the Coptic Patriarchate (22 Sharia Ramses, Abbassiya; 02/396-0025) or the YMCA (72 Sharia al-Gumhorriya, downtown; 02/591-7360), which dispatches an occasional minibus. If you're travelling independently, chartering a taxi for the six- to eight-hour excursion should cost about £E400 from Suez or £E700 from Cairo. To drive from one monastery to the other (82km) takes about ninety minutes.