Arranging a trip for your children? Forget about parks, cinemas, circuses and seaside resorts, says Rehab Saad It was 8am when we all gathered, both kids and their long- suffering mothers, at the Wonderland Mall in Nasr City. Our purpose? To take the rented tour bus to a series of destinations planned for the day. We were all on time. The bus driver turns out to be punctual, too, and by 8.30 we are off -- to the mosques of Al-Refaai and Sultan Hassan near the Salaheddin Citadel, the Gayer Anderson Museum annexed to Ibn Tulun Mosque, and the Abdine Palace in, well, Abdine. The children are excited about the programme; they've started to ask questions about the places we are going to. Assuming the role of tour guide, I'm doing my best to give the simplest possible answers. This is not my first experience of the situation, after all. It's largely due to the success of last year's trip to the Citadel, the Egyptian Museum and the Pyramids of Giza that we're doing it again. And it's not just about entertainment. This group of mothers share the belief that such a trip is as important for their children as school curricula -- and less trying. It all started when my son, Adham, turned eight; in the course of a casual conversation it dawned on me how little he knows of Egyptian history: in the winter he does his school work; in the summer he plays by the sea. Ah well, I thought, remembering my own history with dread. Forget the last 17 years of my life, during which I've been a professional travel writer. The first time I set foot in the Egyptian Museum I was, erm, 21 years old. Nor did I even see Khan Al-Khalili until my first year as a travel writer: the foreigner who accompanied me, then, knew so much more than I did it was terribly embarrassing. Never! I cried inwardly, looking into Adham's eyes. And so I started an Egypt-wide plan covering Pharaonic, Coptic, Islamic and modern. Initial exploratory experiments revealed that, individually or in small numbers, children have the tendency to get bored. The answer? Take the whole class, preferably with parents, and visit more than one place and period at a time. Inspired by Lesley Lababidi's family guide to Cairo, in which it says, incitingly, "in New York City or Paris one might take the family to a museum or an art gallery on a Saturday afternoon, but in Cairo a few people thought such outings were of interest." Well, of interest they totally shall be. The mothers of Adham's classmates proved universally enthusiastic -- and helpful. A task list was quickly drawn up and divided among us: planning the route, renting the bus and preparing an info sheet was my responsibility. Sherine compiled material about the architecture; Noha took on the formidable task of coordination, not only of times and venues but costs. The itinerary was tailored to the children, with the idea of maximum absorption as our guiding principle: at the Citadel, for example, the Mohamed Ali Mosque would serve as an introduction to Islamic architecture while offering stimulating surroundings and plenty of space, while at the Egyptian Museum we headed straight for the King Tut's glittering mask. Following the Pyramids, Andrea's overlooking the nearby Marioutiya Canal matched the mood with its authentic -- and very tasty -- Egyptian cuisine. It also gave the children a chance to ride a donkey and play with dogs in the open air. Lessons learned included making the next trip shorter -- and, on the present occasion, I chose sites closer together. I concentrated on Islamic monuments and royal history: aside from the excitement of Al-Refaai's interior, we visited the tombs of the Egyptian royal family and the shah of Iran. Then we moved on to the mosque in the Madrassa Mosque of Sultan Hassan -- one of the biggest domes in the world. And only 15 minutes drive brought us to Beit Al-Kiritliya: Gayer Anderson Museum, perhaps the truest model of a middle-class Cairene family home in Mameluke times, later acquired by the British officer-collector whose name it now bears. At the Abdine Palace we saw not only royal possessions but gifts given to President Hosni Mubarak by heads of state. The tour came to an end at the famous Felfela's, not far from Abdine. Here too the food was rich, varied and in the spirit of that day. This time we managed to make the trip even more interactive by organising a photo contest, choosing the best three from the whole day. Those who didn't have a camera used their mothers' mobile phones; and it was clickety- click all along. Most, in fact, took excellent photos. It was next to impossible to choose three, so we decided to enlarge and display them at their School. Alongside the photos were the kids' impressions. According to Ruba El-Farra, a mother and a maths teacher at the school, "these trips are excellent because they mix culture with entertainment. Enjoying their time with their friends, the children benefit so much more from the information they get -- I hope we can tour all of Cairo so the kids will find out all about their country." Sherine Wahba, associate professor of architecture, says the trips are an alternative to both popular culture and schoolbooks, offering genuine knowledge through active participation in an enjoyable group activity. "When an architecture student doesn't know Sultan Hassan, there's a problem." Medical professor Noha Ahmed agrees: "it's likely that even the parents won't have visited many of the most basic sites. It's a chance for the parents to explore their country." Others suggested that excursions should be undertaken to other parts of Egypt besides Cairo.
