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Published: March 4th 2007
We found ourselves asking this question more than on any other tour so far. We've seen lots of "old," but this stuff is really OLD! We started and ended our tour of Egypt in Cairo. This is quite the city -- 15 million people, traffic, horns, shoe stores, mosques, pyramids, high rises, casinos, vegetable carts, statues, markets, more traffic, louder horns, more shoe stores -- well, you get the idea! We began at the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities where we got to see real mummies including Ramses II and rooms filled with the treasures extracted from the world-famous tomb of the boy-king, King Tutankhamun -- or King Tut as we know him. Sorry, no pictures of the famous golden mask found on King Tut's mummy, but we did see it along with the solid gold coffin he was in. We also saw his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, but that comes later in the story...
We took a tour of Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt dating from 3,100 BC and from there visited the necropolis of Sakkarah where we saw the world famous Step Pyramid of King Zoser, the oldest known of Egypt's funerary pyramids. Next we went
to the funerary complex at Giza where the 4,500 year old pyramids built for Pharaohs Cheops, Chephren and Mycernius sit at the edge of the Sahara Desert. I tried to get a couple of pictures to give you some idea as to scale, but their magnitude is incomprehensible, particularly when you think about when they were built -- before the invention of the wheel or the use of steel tools, etc. Just to the east of the Great Pyramids lies the legendary Great Sphinx, whose human face is believed to be the likeness of Chephren, standing as guard over his tomb. Our tour so far had our head swimming and we hadn't even been on the Nile River yet!
The next day we flew to Abu Simbel at the very southern part of Egypt in what is known as Upper Egypt because it is close to the source of the Nile. We saw the Temple at Abu Simbel built by the Great Ramses II, Egypt's longest ruling pharaoh. What's truly amazing is that this temple, along with the four colossal statues of Ramses II, had to be moved to save it from the waters of the Nile which rose after
Philae Temple
A close-up of the carvings on the front of Philae Temple.the building of the dam. After touring this temple we flew to Aswan and boarded our Nile cruise boat. The next day we toured Aswan, visiting the Aswan High Dam, Philae Temple and Kon Ombo Temple. We didn't know how much more we could absorb, but there was so much more to see!
We cruised to Edfu and Esna, visiting temples in both places and headed on to Luxor where we toured the Valley of the Kings, a vast city of the dead where magnificent tombs were carved into the desert rocks. We saw the beautifully carved tombs of Ramses I and Ramses III and visited the tomb of King Tut, discovered in 1922. As if all that wasn't enough, we also toured the East Bank of Luxor where we saw the Temple of Luxor and Karnak Temple, a huge complex built over more than 1000 years by generations of pharaohs.
Unfortunately, that was the end of our Nile River cruise. We had a great time and met some wonderful people along the way -- hello to our new friends, Nirav and Sareeka! We're thinking that at this point, Griff may have a leg up on some of his classmates
when he studies world history next year! We are sad to say goodbye to Africa, but our next great adventure awaits us -- on to Europe!
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Carla
non-member comment
Love It!!
Thanks for taking the tour for me - Greece was the same way. Lots of history, but still fun. Have fun in Europe.