Sunrise Trip to Mount Sinai with St. Catherine’s Monastery from Sharm el Sheikh
At the foot of Mount Sinai (Jebel Musa), Moses’ mountain, where he is said to have received the Ten Commandments, you will start your hike towards the top. Our guide will give you a pocket lamp to enlighten our path. If you don’t feel confident about your condition concerning the long and partly exhausting walk, don’t worry – against a small supplement camels are ready to carry you, all the way or for a part of the distance. Only the last steps must be taken on your own on a stairway (the ‘Steps of Repentance’), before you reach the mountain peak. During all the way you can enjoy the unique atmosphere, marching on the holy mountain with your lamp under the starlit sky. Our guide will be with you to make sure that you will get enough to drink and to give you any help or information you need. Of course you are free to take a rest whenever you want.
In the early morning you will reach the top where you will see the Chapel of the Holy Trinity search for a nice place to sit down and wait for the sunrise. Then you will enjoy a wonderful view when the sun will rise over Egypt. You will be delighted of the beauty of this moment and of the spiritual atmosphere, and for sure you will come to the conclusion that this experience was worth every effort.
Please be aware that you will climb up
to a height of almost 2,300 meters!
This means that you will have to face
low temperatures during this trip – please take warm cloths!
Also be aware that for hiking up to the
mountain top you should be adequately fit and in good health!
After spending some time on the peak you will start wandering down towards St. Catherine’s Monastery and make a stop for breakfast before you start your visit. The monastery is located at the foot of Mount Sinai, on the place, where Moses is said to have seen the Burning Bush. The first monastic life around this place is supposed to have taken place already in the 4th century AD, which makes the monastery to one of the oldest in the world. Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine I, the first Roman emperor converted to Christianity, ordered a chapel to be built on the site of the Burning Bush in the early 4th century AD. The monastery in its current form has been built by the Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century AD, with strong fortifications to protect the monks. Due to this measure, its isolated location and the protection by Mohamed, the Prophet of Islam, who in written form promised St. Catherine’s Monastery to be not attacked by any Muslim forces, it remained untouched during the centuries.
For this reason you cannot only see the buildings, walls and decorations in their nearly original form, but also countless precious items have survived until today and turned out to be an extraordinary treasure to modern scientists walking on the path of history. The library features the second large collection of ancient codices and manuscripts in the world – overtrumped only by the Vatican Library! You can also see the greatest collection of antique icons in the world as behind the monastery’s walls they could even survive the time of the Byzantine iconoclasm where most of the early icons have been destroyed. Further you can discover the buildings, have a look at a bush in the courtyard that is purported the original Burning Bush, and the beautiful mosaics.
The monastery still houses monks and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since the year 2002.
For more information or to book this trip, please
see this link: http://www.whitesharkegypt.com/package.php?id=6612270
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