• Egypt Guide

  • Introduction to Egypt
  • Weather
  • Things not to miss
  • Getting around
  • Entry requirements
  • Money
  • Public holidays

• Explore Egypt

  • Cairo
  • The Pyramids
  • The Nile Valley
  • The Western Desert Oases
  • Alexandria and the Mediterranean coast
  • The Delta
  • The Canal Zone
  • Sinai
  • The Red Sea Coast and Eastern Desert

• Cities

  • Alexandria
    
  • Assyut
    
  • Aswan
    
  • Cairo
    
  • Damietta (Dumyat)
    
  • Hurghada (Ghardaka)
    
  • Luxor
    
  • Port Said
    
  • Qena
    
  • Rosetta (Rashid)
    
  • Suez
    
  • Tanta
    

Egypt Guide

The Western Desert Oases

The Fayoum

• Accommodation
• Eating and drinking

A kind of pocket-size version of Cairo, with the Bahr Yussef Canal in the role of the Nile, FAYOUM CITY makes a grab at the wallets of middle-class Cairenes who come to bask beside Lake Qaroun during summertime. The few foreigners that venture here tend to be whisked through in buses and remain immured in hotels, so independent travellers draw attention – especially women.

Fayoum City's most central landmark is the four large wooden waterwheels, symbolic of Fayoumi agriculture, that groan away behind the tourist kiosk. The Fayoum has about two hundred such waterwheels, introduced by Ptolemaic engineers in the third century BC. Because Nile water enters the sloping Fayoum depression at its highest point, gravity does half the work of distribution, and the waterwheels act as pumps.

Walking west alongside the canal and crossing the fourth bridge from the tourist kiosk, you can follow a street with a wooden roof into the Souk al-Qantara, a labyrinth of tiny shops selling copperware and spices, grain and pulses, clothing and other goods – all without a hint of tourism. Sharia es-Sagha, the Street of Goldsmiths, is crammed with jewellers' shops, mostly owned by Christians. Fayoum City has a substantial Christian minority – mainly Copts, but also Anglicans and Catholics – whose churches are ranged along Sharia 26th July. The oldest is the Church of the Virgin, dating from the 1830s, which contains an altar dedicated to the local saint Anba Abram (1829–1912).

Near the souk you'll also find three historic mosques. The Mosque of Ali er-Rubi is dedicated to a local sheikh whose renown among the Fayoumis eclipses even Anba Abram's. His mausoleum, down some steps from the courtyard, is surrounded by an enormous darih or carved box-frame, and people muttering supplications to the saint. Further west beside the canal, the Mosque of Qaitbey is the oldest in the Fayoum, built (or perhaps restored) by the Circassian Mamluke Sultan Qaitbey. Ancient columns from Kiman Faris uphold its dome, while the stone carving around the doorway, and the ebony minbar inlaid with Somalian ivory, are distinctly Mamluke.