Egypt - The monasteries of the Arab Desert and Wadi Natrun

A/ The Monasteries of the Arab Desert: Arid and mountainous, the Arab Desert stretches its great lonely spaces from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea. The monasteries of St. Anthony and of St. Paul are about 10 km south of Zafarana, a place on the western shore of the Red Sea (about 230 km south-east of Cairo). The first monastery is on the flank of Gabal al-Alaa al-Qibliya, there where the cave of St. Anthony is located and where he lived until his death in 356 AD. The second monastery is slightly further to the west on the same mountain where St. Paul lived for 60 years according to the legend (at the beginning of the IVth century AD). B/ The Monasteries of Wadi Natrun The Wadi Natrun is a 25 km long depression in the western desert half-way between Cairo and Alexandria where there are about a dozen saline lakes, two of which, the Bouhaïret el-Gounfadiya and the Bouhaïret el-Hamra, provide natron, the sodium carbonate used by the Pharaohs for mummification.