Citadel of Saladin

A walled fortress on a spur of the Muqattam hills, deliberately sited on the one piece of high ground that overlooks the whole city. From the terrace outside the Alabaster Mosque you get the classic view: the medieval roofscape, a thicket of minarets, and — on a clear winter morning — the pyramids on the horizon.

The Citadel is really several sites inside one wall, and it is worth knowing what you are choosing between before you go in.

Inside the walls

• The Mosque of Muhammad Ali — the Ottoman silhouette that defines the skyline
• The Mosque of al-Nasir Muhammad — much older, 14th century, plain and quiet, with faience-topped minarets
• Bir Yusuf, "Joseph's Well" — an 87-metre shaft cut straight through the rock with a spiral ramp around it, so oxen could walk down to raise water
• The military and carriage museums — modest, but the terraces around them have the best views

Salah ad-Din — Saladin — began the fortress in 1176, using the Muqattam spur to command both the city and the road from the east. Once complete, it became the seat of Egyptian government and stayed that way for close to seven hundred years, through Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman rule, until the khedives moved down to Abdeen Palace in the 19th century.

The banquet

Its darkest story is also its most consequential. In March 1811, Muhammad Ali — nominally the Ottoman governor, in practice building his own dynasty — invited the Mamluk beys to a celebration at the Citadel. The Mamluks had ruled Egypt in one form or another for centuries and remained the main obstacle to his power.

They came in ceremonial dress. As the procession filed down a narrow walled passage towards the gate, the gate was shut and troops opened fire from the walls above. Some four hundred and seventy men were killed in a defile they could not escape. Muhammad Ali's authority was never seriously challenged again, and the dynasty he founded ruled Egypt until 1952.