مسجد المنيا الكبير

El-Minya's Great Mosque is the architectural anchor of the city's Nile corniche, its minaret a landmark on a riverfront that has earned Minya the nickname bride of Upper Egypt. In a Middle Egypt city few foreign travellers reach, it stands as a working centre of daily worship rather than a tourist monument, and the surrounding corniche is the town's favourite place to stroll at dusk.

Minya rewards the curious with a slower, more authentic slice of Egyptian life, and the mosque makes a natural starting point before venturing out to the region's remarkable sites: the tombs of Beni Hasan, the ruined city of Akhenaten at Amarna, and Tuna el-Gebel. Come for the riverside atmosphere and the sense of an Egypt still largely off the trail.