TWELVE DAYS JOURNEY TO EGYPT & JORDAN, 5th MAY 2027
FOLLOWING THE JOURNEY OF THE HOLY FAMILY MORE THAN 2000 YEARS AGO
As recorded in the Bible's Gospel of Matthew, the king had decreed the death of all Bethlehem's baby boys, but an angel had appeared to Joseph in a dream, telling him to "take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt". According to Matthew, the trio obeyed this instruction and departed the very next night. The Holy Family – Jesus, Mary and Joseph – is fleeing Bethlehem to Egypt, escaping King Herod's wrath.
According to Coptic Christian tradition, the Holy Family would spend the next three-and-a-half years on the move, from Bethlehem to Egypt's Nile Delta then tracing the river as far south as Upper Egypt. Marked with many dozens of miracles, their momentous, round-trip journey racked up more than 3,000km.
The Holy Family Trail, The Holy Family Trail in Egypt covers a historical and spiritual pilgrimage of approximately 3,500 kilometers stringing together some 25 stops along the celebrated route.
One of the highlights: Church of the Blessed Virgin atop Jabal al-Tayr (the Mountain of Birds), roughly 240km south of Cairo, once involved a perilous, vertical climb up a cliff rising straight from the Nile followed by a series of steep, rock-hewn steps.
But today’s approach to the church is much smoother – in an air-conditioned bus along a well-surfaced road. Heading south along the Nile's east bank past a chiselled, white landscape of quarries dating back to the pharaohs, Coptic Christian graves began to appear as you came closer to Jabal al-Tayr's sacred core: a cave underneath the church.