Photo : Berthold Werner — CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Sinai · Sinai
Saint Catherine's Monastery
A sixth-century monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai, lived in without a break since Justinian.
The emperor Justinian had the monastery and its granite walls raised between 548 and 565, around the place where tradition puts the burning bush; monks have lived there ever since, which makes it one of the oldest Christian monasteries in unbroken use. The church of the Transfiguration keeps a sixth-century apse mosaic and a collection of icons, the oldest of them painted in wax; its manuscript library is among the oldest in the Christian world, and the Codex Sinaiticus came from here. Inside the walls there is also a mosque of the Fatimid period, which says enough about how this place has come through fourteen centuries. Mount Sinai, 2,285 metres, rises directly behind: it is climbed at night by the camel path or by the Steps of Repentance, several thousand of them cut by the monks.
The extra bit
Sleep in the village of Saint Catherine rather than making the round trip from Sharm el-Sheikh: the summit is climbed before dawn and the monastery only opens to visitors in the morning. A day trip misses one or the other, and often both.
Know before you go
The monastery is an inhabited place of prayer, visitors see only a small part of it, and in the morning only; it closes to visitors on certain religious days, and access has been suspended more than once in recent years — knowing that the night before saves you five hours on the road. Shoulders and knees covered, voices down, photography restricted inside the church. The night on the mountain is cold even in summer, and the sand on the path is unforgiving to smooth soles. Ask your hotel or your driver about road conditions and Sinai checkpoints before setting off.
