Giza · Saqqara Road
Fagnoon Art School
A workshop farm near Saqqara, where a child makes things instead of watching them.
Fagnoon is a farm set down in open country on the Saqqara tourist road, founded by the artist Mohamed Allam. There is nothing to visit: you move from station to station in the open air, between pottery and clay modelling, textile painting, woodwork, wrought iron and printing. Between workshops there are treehouses, climbing ropes, horses and, on some days, colour fights. You come for half a day or a whole one, a quarter of an hour from the step pyramid, in a light and a dust that are nothing like Cairo's.
The extra bit
Call, or write on WhatsApp, before setting out: the place is largely organised around booked school groups, and a family arriving on a day without one will not necessarily find the workshops running. Dress the child — and yourself — in clothes you accept losing, because clay and paint do not come out, and bring a change for the car. And drive out in the morning: on the way back, late afternoon on the Saqqara road and then Giza is paid for in hours.
Know before you go
Opening hours are not published at source: secondary guides give 9am–5pm daily, which we could not confirm — hence the phone call before setting out. Everything happens outdoors: from May to September the middle of the day is unworkable, and in January it turns cold as soon as the sun drops. There is no public transport out there and no taxi to be found on that road: come by car, or agree the return with your driver before he leaves. And this is a place for making, nothing else: a child who would rather watch, or who dislikes dirty hands, will be bored before noon.
