Mount Sinai and St. Catherine's: Where History and Faith Meet

Mount Sinai, in the mountains of the southern Sinai Peninsula, is traditionally identified as the site where Moses received the Ten Commandments — a place of major significance across Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike. The standard visit is an overnight climb: starting around 2 a.m., hiking roughly 2-3 hours up a camel path (or a longer, steeper route of ancient stone steps) to reach the 2,285-meter summit before sunrise. At the base of the mountain sits St. Catherine's Monastery, built in the 6th century CE and recognized as the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery in the world — nearly 1,500 years of unbroken monastic life on the same site. It holds one of the most significant collections of early Christian icons and manuscripts anywhere, second only to the Vatican Library in the depth of its historic religious texts, including parts of the Codex Sinaiticus, one of the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Christian Bible. The monastery also protects what tradition holds is the actual Burning Bush from the biblical account — a shrub still growing on the grounds today. The sunrise from the summit, watching the surrounding desert mountains turn shades of orange and pink as the sun comes up, is consistently rated one of the most memorable experiences in the whole Sinai region — a physically demanding but non-technical hike that rewards effort with both a religious and a genuinely spectacular natural payoff.