Sham el-Nessim

Finding a spot for the national day outdoors

There is no ticket, stage or programme for Sham el-Nessim. The whole country simply takes the day off and goes outdoors, so your planning is about choosing a spot and getting there before everyone else. In Cairo, a base in Garden City or Zamalek works well. Both sit close to the Nile, so a riverside walk or a felucca is a short taxi ride away.

The holiday also shuts government offices, banks and many shops, and Easter Sunday comes the day before. Do your banking and any errands by the end of the previous week. Big monuments stay open, though crowds are heavier than usual, which makes it a good morning for something less famous.

Many Egyptians stretch the holiday into a long weekend at the coast. If you want to join them on the Red Sea or in Alexandria, book rooms and trains early, because both fill up fast. Our Egypt travel guide has the wider picture for building a spring itinerary around the day.

How the date is set by the Coptic calendar

Sham el-Nessim always falls on the Monday after Easter as the Coptic Church reckons it, using the Eastern calculation traditionally credited to Pope Demetrius. That is why it slides between late March and early May, and why the Islamic lunar calendar never moves it. In later years, check the Coptic Easter date and add a day.

The day starts early. Families set out with rugs and bags of food, aiming to claim shade before the parks fill, and by late morning the favourite gardens are packed and the roads around them jammed. The meal is the point of the day, and nobody rushes it.

Ancient roots and the meaning of lettuce and eggs

The festival's name is usually translated as smelling the breeze, and many link it to Shemu, the season when ancient Egypt's harvest began. Its exact roots are poorly recorded, but the case for great age is strong. The foods on today's picnic rugs each carry an old meaning. Lettuce stood for fertility and was sacred to the god Min. Onions were used in embalming. Eggs echoed the idea of a cosmic egg from which life emerged.

The festival survived every change of ruler. Under the Fatimids the caliph himself led official processions, and later Christian Egyptians kept the day alive by tying it to Easter, when fish and eggs speak of resurrection. Muslims celebrate it just as fully. Older customs have faded: a wish was once inked onto an eggshell and the shell hung in a tree, and wives strung lotus flowers into necklaces for their husbands.

Then there is fesikh. Herodotus wrote about Egyptians eating fish sun-dried or kept in brine, and this fermented grey mullet is a direct descendant. Its smell divides families, and so does its taste. Plenty of people skip it entirely and fill up on dyed eggs, lettuce and onions, which is a perfectly respectable way to keep the feast.