St. Katherine

The beautiful town of St. Katherine is situated in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt at the high of 1600 meters from sea level. At the foot of the Sinai High Mountains, the place offers a picturesque beauty of a world-famous monastery. Every year thousands of the visitors visit the oldest continuously inhabited monastery in the world. A huge number of tourists, who arrive on tours at Egypt, observe the beauty of resort towns of Sharm el Sheikh and Dahab in the evening and climb the mountain at dawn.

The place is declared as a world heritage site from UNESCO due to its natural and cultural importance. You may spend almost a week in exploring the amazing beauty of the St Catherine. The place accommodates over 200 religious places and other important monasteries and churches with an ultimate glory of the highest mountains in Egypt with impressive views, amazing rock formations and landscapes.

St Catherine is relatively a new establishment where you may get a number of attractions worth watching. The Fatimid mosque is located to the southwest of the basilica and is a small semi-detached minaret in the north corner. If talking about the interiors, the inside of the mosque has a flat wooden roof, circular arches and small high windows with three shallow mihrabs are arranged in the qibla wall that glorifies the beauty of the place.

The Cemetery and Charnel house is another best thing to watch here that expresses the history of the burial of the ancient monks. In ancient times the decayed bones of the monks were kept in special niches. The Charnel House was known for both practical and spiritual function and used to remind the monks about the inevitability of death.

The library at St Catherine is another fascinating place you may enjoy during your stay. The library is the oldest in the Christian world and accommodates the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts across the world. The library has a biggest and collection of more than 2000 icons of Christ, Mary and the saints, broad enough to capture your soul and mind.

St Catherine has a glorious history of the sculpture and heritage that offers an amazing experience of world class travel. Being the oldest working Christian monastery, St. Anthony was originally built by Empress Helen whose relics are stilled stored in a marble reliquary in the Basilica.

The St Catherine offers spectacular natural surroundings with an eye-catching works of art. It includes a wonderful Byzantine mosaic reminding back to the 6th century. In addition, enjoy the magnificent glory of Arab mosaics, Greek and Russian icons, Western oil paintings, and paintings on wax as well.