Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo
girl with arms open in nature
girl with arms open in nature
Celina Timmerman / Her Campus
Life > Experiences

A MUST SEE HIDDEN GEM IN CAIRO

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UC Berkeley chapter.

Jazīrat al Qurāţīyīn is a small banana and rose island in Cairo, Egypt. Taken by a boat, your guide will entertain you with some music, make a couple of jokes and take photos for you. To call this island anything less than beautiful is an understatement. 

Here are my top four highlights:

1) The honey and bread 

cairo honey and bees
Original Photo by Razkiah Dharhan

As soon as you get off the boat, you can smell the fresh bread being made and the bees flying around. This area of the island is dedicated to bread making and honey farming. The amount of bees might be scary at first but if you don’t bother them you’ll be all good. 

cairo bread
Original Photo by Razkiah Dharhan

We bought some bread and honey (honeycomb included) and both were the best I’ve ever tasted. The bread was so hot, flaky and so soft, and paired with the honey, it was delicious. We snacked on the honey throughout the week. 

2) The banana trees

cairo palm trees
Original Photo by Razkiah Dharhan

I’ve never seen banana trees before, so this was definitely a highlight for me. The close up of the trees was amazing and the view from afar? Breathtaking. We were making our way around the island during sunset so the sky looked especially pretty. 

cairo bananas on tree
Original Photo by Razkiah Dharhan

The only downside was that we didn’t visit when the bananas were ripe. I’m sure they would’ve tasted amazing. 

3) The Love Birds

cairo yellow birds in cage
Original Photo by Razkiah Dharhan

We got a house tour from one of the residents, who had these two birds. They’re called Love Birds because they’re gifted to newlyweds. What’s not cute about this?

4) The Rose Garden

cairo red flowers, palm trees and sunset
Original Photo by Razkiah Dharhan

Enjoy your time picking some flowers and taking some cute pictures. It’s a great place to enjoy the sunset and drink some tea. Taking a deep breath here helped me feel like I let go of a lot of worries. 

The rose garden was the last stop in our tour. After that, we took one last look at the view and went back to the boat where we visited some other near-by islands. 

Would you visit Jazīrat al Qurāţīyīn? 

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar
Raz D.

UC Berkeley '24

Razkiah is a junior at UC Berkeley majoring in Media Studies and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures. She loves drinking tea, reading, crocheting and attempting to paint.