For safety reasons, tourists are advised to avoid this region. This region of lakes and orchards is famous for the funerary portraits found in a necropolis near the village of Er-Rubayat (and now exhibited in museums the world over). It is recommended that you hire a guide to accompany you as the area is rigidly Muslim. Visit the old Ptolemaic cities, Karanis, Qasr Qarun and especially Medinet el-Faiyum, the historical capital, formerly called the "crocodile town" as the animal was a deity in this fertile and irrigated region.