Mount Sinai, Egypt

Must See İn Mount Sinai

The Monastery of St. Catherine, at the foot of the mountain, is the easier of the two destinations here. Looking more like a fortress than a church, access is through a massive iron gate shut for the night and opened in the morning from 9 AM to 12 AM only.

Note that the monastery observes the Greek Orthodox rites and is thus also closed for Christmas and Easter as calculated by the Greek Orthodox calendar. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2002.

Church of St. Catherine. The main church of the complex, completed in 551.
Basilica. Famous for a mosaic of the Transfiguration.
Moses’ Well. A spring that supplies water to the monastery and, according to legend, the location where Moses met his wife for the first time.
Library. One of the greatest repositories of ancient manuscripts in the world (second only to the Vatican), housing over 4500 rare volumes. No access without special permission (granted only to VIPs and bona fide scholars).
Ossuary. This morbid charnel house contains the skulls of 1400 years’ worth of monks who have lived and died here.
Museum. A small museum which nevertheless contains some of the most important Byzantine icons in the world, including the oldest depiction of the Christ Pantocrator, and other treasures of the monastery.