Cairo Cave Church Monastery St Simon Garbage City Private Tour
A trusted partner experience, hand-picked and featured on This is Egypt.

Overview
Cairo is packed with iconic attractions—so many, that most travelers miss its more off-the-beaten-track offerings. Visit three unique sights related to the city’s Christian minority during this two-hour private tour. Travel through “Garbage City,” home to Coptic trash collectors, see where the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared, and visit the cave-dug monastery of Simon the Tanner. Air-conditioned transportation and admission tickets are included.
Cairo · 5282 Cultural & Historic · typical ~4,081 EGP · 653 EGP — good value
Highlights
- ✦Private tour
- ✦Hotel pickup
What's included
- ✓Air-conditioned vehicle
- ✓Hotel pick up and drop off
- ✓Bottled water
- ✓private tour
- ✓Qualified Egyptologist tour guide(based on the tour options you’ve booked)
- ✓Egyptian traditional lunch (based on the tour options you’ve booked)
Itinerary
- 1Cave Church
Frequently asked questions
- How long is this experience?
- See details
- Can I cancel my booking?
- Yes — you can cancel free of charge up to 24 hours before it starts.
- What's included?
- Air-conditioned vehicle · Hotel pick up and drop off · Bottled water · private tour · Qualified Egyptologist tour guide(based on the tour options you’ve booked) · Egyptian traditional lunch (based on the tour options you’ve booked)
Reviews (64)
I thoroughly enjoyed my private tour of the Virgin Mary & St. Simon the Tanner Cathedral, fondly named the Cave Church set in the Moqattam Mountains. My tour guide Marina was excellent & so informative. Despite our 40-year age difference, we made a special connection in this very holy & spiritual place. My driver also was excellent & so incredibly patient driving in Cairo traffic. He provided me a fantastic tour of Manshiyat Naser (aka Garbage City), a slum settlement founded to store & recycle garbage in 1976 & the base of Mokattam Mountain. My tour guide Marina also opened a store there to s
The driver Tamer was really nice and knowledgable about Garbage City. He made effort to explain everything on our way to the church. At the church, I was assigned another guide who just rambled some information off in maximum 5 minutes and then attended to other groups. Quite expensive tour for the poor service received. I was offered to go inside and have him re-do the tour but I did not have time. The seating area was also closed off and I had to stand my ground to go inside. Otherwise, it is beautiful to visit and witness. From previous reviews, you can take an Uber there. This way you can
The tour of the Cave Church was amazing. The young man who conducted my tour was very friendly and knowledgeable and also a very good photographer. He was a member of the church clergy. That said, the gentleman who the tour company claimed was a tour guide, was a great disappointment. He could not answer any of my questions. He also took me to multiple businesses along the way, which I knew about because of the research I had done. I had no problem with that, it was interesting to learn about the different local produces. But, it turned out that we spent the majority of my time doing this. The
Raafat was very informative and helpful. He had a church guide give us a detailed tour of the beautiful cave church. Ride thru garbage city was was enlightening.
Very interesting to see some of how folks live and the church was amazing! Raafat was great. He gave me more than was actually included in the tour. Got to see a few shops in Giza.
The tour guide whatsapped me the day before the tour to confirm the pick up time at 8am. On the tour date at 8am, I whatsapped him saying that we were ready for pick up and asked him if he was nearby. He then replied me at 8:03am replied that he was sick so the tour was cancelled and would be fully refunded. This is crazy. If he was sick, he could have arranged another tour guide to do it but not telling me in the last minute (actually 3 mins passed the pick up time and he might have not told me it was cancelled if I didn't text him).
You'll complete your booking securely on Viator. Price shown is the latest we found.
Chat with a real person — freeAsk Seif on WhatsApp ↗- Free cancellation up to 24h before
- Secure booking
- No added fees
“Great experience; friendly and kind driver. Driver listed to what I needed and made sure I had a good experience”
The same experience, compared across platforms.
- Viator(this listing)Cheapest653 EGP
- Tripadvisor653 EGP






























