Overview
FAYOUM is one of Egypt’s 7 beautiful oasis
“The most important fact about Fayoum Oasis; in about 1-2 hours drive from Cairo. Discover authentic desert adventure in the mid of extreme tranquility, beautiful and rich with unique attractions. A big variety of natural formations, geological, historical, lakes, sand dunes, valleys, waterfalls, Unesco heritage site, beautiful villages and many other. Fayoum has a mix of experiences hardly exists in any other place around the world
Fayoum is a wonderful area of Egypt with a rich and interesting range of flora, fauna and history. This 692 square miles (1114 km2) are a vast depression which was a lush paradise during prehistoric times.
Fayoum is the closest oasis to Cairo, making it very accessible if Cairo is your base for travelling. You can experience a wide diversity of nature, history, architecture and world heritage sites, as well as beautiful lakes, geological wonders, and meet friendly locals. Fayoum beauty attracts the attention of Egyptian artists and philosophers.
Fayoum Lake and Oasis was a famous resort for Cairo´s elite and Egypt’s Royal Family in the 19th and early 20th century.
It takes you only an hour and 20 minutes drive to unplug from Cairo’s chaos and find yourself surrounded by unspoilt beauty. You can venture there just for the day on a Real Egypt day tour, camp overnight in the surrounding desert or spend a night in an eco- hotel and spread your visit over a two or three days of adventure.
Visit:
Valley of Whales – bones that are millions of years old and the newly opened Fossil and Climate Change Museum
Wadi El Rayan Waterfalls
Unique historical attractions rarely seen by visitors, such as the Ancient Greek city of Demi El Sebaa, The Christian Monastery of Abu Lifa, the mysterious temple of Qasr El Sagha, the oldest paved road in history and many more.
Swim, sand-board, dune-bash, watch pottery-making at El Nazla or the famous Tunis Village, hike El Modawara Mountain to watch a beautiful sunset over the Magic Lake, horse ride, camel trekking, go to the Petrified Desert, bird-watching, or explore some of the Greek-Roman ruins.
The Water Wheels are an important tourist attraction. These unique large wooden wheels, invented by Archimedes in the ancient Library of Alexandria more than 2000 years ago, were used to irrigate the region. There are around 200 of these water-powered wheels throughout Fayoum and they are not known to be found anywhere else in Egypt.
The region of Fayoum thrived during the Middle Kingdom (1991-1790 BC) and it became so popular that the 12th Dynasty kings Senwosret II and Amenemhat III chose to site pyramids here as their final resting places.
Fayoum includes two areas declared as protected by the Egyptian Government: Lake Qarun and Wadi Rayan National Parks. It is divided into six administrative centers of which the chief towns are Madinat al-Fayoum, Tamiya, Sinnuris, Ibshawai, Yusuf al Siddiq and Itsa, comprising approximately 157 villages and 1,565 hamlets and with a population of more than 3 million inhabitants.
Fayoum is a vast depression that at its lowest level contains a great lake called Birkat Qarun (Lake Qaroun). This depression receives water from a branch of the Nile that was made into a canal in ancient times, now called Bahr Joussef. This splits up into a dense network of secondary canals. Fayoum is usually referred to as an oasis, but it differs from other oases as it receives water directly from the Nile.
In the 1960s, Egyptian authorities created three lakes in the Wadi Rayan depression, southwest of Lake Qarun, to hold excess water from agricultural drainage. This was intended to be the first step in an ambitious land-reclamation project, though not everything went to plan when the water started to become increasingly brackish. On the positive side, these man-made lakes became particularly conducive to large colonies of birds, leading to the entire depression being administered as a national park.
Name and Etymology
Fayoum had several different names through the ages. In ancient Egypt in the Old Kingdom it was called “Shedet” in reference to the lake, and in the Middle Kingdom it was called “Ta-She” meaning (The land of the Lake). The modern name of the city comes from Coptic “Pa-Ym” – payom – meaning the Sea or the Lake, which in turn comes from late Egyptian “Pa Ym” of the same meaning, a reference to the nearby Lake Moeris. It was called Al Fayoum after the Arab conquest of Egypt – land of the lake.
The Climate:
Fayoum enjoys a hot dry climate with rare rain in the Winter, the temperature ranging in the Winter between highs of 11 to 17 and lows of 4 to 10 degrees in January, and the average annual rainfall is around 17 mm.
“Cool are the dawns; tall are the trees; many are the fruits; little are the rains”, el Nabulsi wrote 750 years ago.
Fayoum is best visited using a 4×4 car as the road is uneven and you have to navigate desert sands to reach attractions. Fayoum is an all year round attraction but to enjoy the best weather and your time more we advise:
Best time to visit
- For bird watching: during Winter to witness the bird migration;
- Hiking, trekking and sand-boarding: October through May, as the weather can be very hot in the desert during Summer time.
- Chilling out near the lakes: All year round.
- Fishing: September through July.
- Anytime of year – pick your spot and get an adrenaline rush. The most famous sand boarding spot is Qoussour El-Arab.
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