St Catherine's Village
St Catherine's
Village (also known as 'Katreen' or 'Al Milgra') is the small,
desert town that exist to accommodate the tourists that come each day to visit Mount
Sinaiand
the Saint Catherine's
Monastery. The area is peaceful and
remote, and great care has been taken to ensure that new buildings blend in to the Martian landscape that surround them.
The town is just five minutes in a taxi, or ten to fifteen minutes on foot from the
monastery. If you plan to stay in St Catherine, there are a large number of hotels from which to choose. All are well
used to people rising early for the moonlight trek up Mount Sinai. They can provide transport to/from the mountain, early morning
breakfast and midnight snacks. They also do a roaring trade in torches, batteries and woolly
hats.
Although most visitors to Saint Catherine come primarily to see
the Monastery and Mount Sinai, the region has considerably more to offer.
With the highest Mountain in Egypt, opportunities for trekking and
rock climbing are among the best in the Middle East. In addition to St Catherine's Monastery, there are some 200 other
religious sites including monasteries, churches, and ruins of Byzantine monastic settlements. And there
are also many beautiful gardens too, created and tended to by the Jebeliya Bedouin who have inhabited the
region for the last 1400 years.
By far the best resource about the St Catherine's region is www.st-katherine.net. Please visit them for further information about any
of the above.
Transport to/from:
From
Cairo
Saint Catherine can be reached by road from a number of other
destinations within Sinai and mainland Egypt. Regular East Delta buses run
to/from Cairo (6-7hours), with buses arriving and departing from Cairo's Turgoman bus
station.
From Dahab and Nuweiba
Buses to/from Dahab and Nuweiba
have recently ceased to operate. A more reliable option is to hire a share taxi locally. Price is roughly 200 - 250
Egyptian pounds for the whole vehicle however prices vary depending on your negotiation
skills.
Most hotels offer trips via mini bus to Saint Catherine's for
those wishing to make the overnight climb up Mount
Sinai.
Sharm El
Sheikh
To travel from Sharm to Saint Catherine the best option is to go via El Tur. You can take a
share taxi to El Tur. From there, there are two mini buses a day which leave for St Catherine from outside the
Mecca Hotel at 2pm and 9pm.
Distances from St Catherine to other Egyptian towns and
cities:
Cairo: 425km
Nuweiba: 110km
Dahab: 130km
Sharm El Sheikh: 230km
Taba: 170km
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