http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Mo-Sadrpour/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Mo Sadrpour en-us Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:26:23 +0000 Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:26:23 +0000 Meet with our guide again and went to Citadel Coptic Cairo and then to the Museum. Another great day. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Lower-Egypt/Cairo/blog-276998.html The best day ever Lisa and Mo took a cab to the Great Pyramids at round 830am. The plan is to take some pictures and to get tickets to see inside the Great pyramid. Lisa waits while Mo runs to the ticket booth to purchase tickets. No All the Pyramid tickets were sold out Mo bribes some dude in the ticketing office and gets away with two tickets. What an awesome experience to walk in the Great http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Lower-Egypt/Cairo/blog-277001.html Up at around 445am to make our 7am flight to Luxor. Got to Luxor around 930am. Checked in and then sat by the pool for a while. Took a look at Luxorrsquos museum. Not nearly as impressive as the on in Cairo but interesting. Took a walk around town until we got sick of being asked if we wanted a taxi or carriage. You canrsquot cross the street around here without someone trying to separate http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Upper-Egypt/Luxor/blog-277004.html Guide picked us up around 7am. We drive to the West Bank of the Nile where we will visit the Valley of the Kings and the tombs there AlDeir AlBahari Temple and finally the ruins of a workers village. After our tour we shopped the Bazaar found some local food and brought it back to our hotel for dinner on our balcony overlooking the Nile. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Upper-Egypt/Luxor/blog-277005.html Pool Mummification museum it sucked more Bazaar more local foodhellip.relaxing day http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Upper-Egypt/Luxor/blog-277007.html 8am flight back to Cairo. Checked into the Marriott thanks Mo for using his points. This place is a treat for us after some of the places we have stayed. Four maybe five star. We are on the 15th floor with a balcony overlooking the Nile and Cairo. Wow Itrsquos now owned by the Marriott but itrsquos one of the few historic hotels left in the city. It is too hot and we are too in love with th http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Lower-Egypt/Cairo/blog-277008.html Up at 630 for a walk to the Old Islamic part of Cairo about an hour and half walk. We go into the AlAzhar Mosque and get a tour from one of the men there who asks for a tip and then complains about the amount until we give him more. We then walk to the ldquoCity of the Deadrdquo a huge old cemetery where they built houses rather than graves for the dead. Creepy. We then did the rest of o http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Lower-Egypt/Cairo/blog-277011.html Drove to Bari Italy had lunch and Lisa got hit on by a very Italian waiter. Boarded ferry around 5pm and then watched tons of trucks BACK onto the boat. Had a great dinner in a surprising nice restaurant on board. Planned out our route to Egypt and met some other travelers on board.TRIED to sleep on a couch then the floor then a chairhellip.. Did not matter what you did just could not get comf http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Puglie/Bari/blog-276524.html No car no bag.Al still in ParisMo and LisaCall to check on the car and talk to a nasty man who is totally unwilling to help.Decide to rent a car and flee France for some fish and chips in England.Realize once they reach the Euro Tunnel that is actually a train that you drive your car into.Drink wine eat cheese in a car in a train under the English Channel.Once in the tunnel we brokeout the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Kent/Dover/blog-276164.html No bag no car.Al goes to Le Havre to try and get the car out of port.Mo and Lisa visit Canterbury Cathedral followed by Leeds Castle.Then a Skype call to Homayun in Paris to see if he has heard anything from Al. A very special thanks to Homayun and Christine for the phone and translation services they graciously provided us while in France.Homayun delivers the news that Al has the car and he is http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Upper-Normandie/Le-Havre/blog-276165.html No bag. British Airways up to 25000 bags lost. Finally we are all together and in the car. Off to Normandy France. The Memorial and grave site was very powerful. To stand there and try to understand and experience of these solders was pretty intense. So many have sacrificed their lives for the freedom of Northern Europe. We walked around the grounds took lots of photos and visited the bunkers on http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Upper-Normandie/F-camp/blog-276160.html No bag. Drive back to Paris in hopes of finding Alrsquos bag there. Shopping for Al just incase no bag ever arrives. Indian food for dinner and a long walk back to the Hotel on a great spring night in Paris. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Ile-de-France/Paris/blog-276166.html No bag.British Airways tells us they have located the bag but canrsquot say where it is that is just amazing.We pack up the car and prepare to head out of town.One last call to BA and then a French hot dog for lunch with Homayun. Al finally decided to Frsquo the bags.Finally we head south.Stop at a French rest stop where there are no toilets just a hole and couple of metal handles. Lisa http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Rh-ne-Alpes/Lyon/blog-276171.html Drove from Belleville to San Tropez then Canne France. These towns are just beautiful. A great place to spend lots of money and have a wonderful romantic vacation http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d--Azur/Cannes/blog-276515.html Woke up to an amazing spring day in Canne. Drove to Monte CarloHad a picnic lunch overlooking the Monico skylineDrove south to ItalyGot detoured off the highway to a one lane mountainous road to La Spezia Italy. Lisa was driving and she did a great job thru the windy one lane road Honesty couple of times as we meet cars coming from opposite direction I had to get out and direct traffic to avid http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-276517.html Our last day in Cairo. We are writing this a day early so that we can enjoy every second of the last day of this amazing trip. We have seen and experienced so much in the past few weeks. It certainly hasnrsquot been your typical vacation. There have been some very difficult challenges along the way. But the people we have met the places wersquove been and the experiences wersquove shared wi http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Lower-Egypt/Cairo/blog-277012.html Today we drove from La Spezia to Florence. We quickly found a very nice OLD hotel. The rooms were HUGE and had 20ft ceilings. It was a great spring day but a little windy. Many of the museums are closed on Mondays so there were slightly less tourist on the streets which was nice. We walked around for a few hours. You canrsquot go far in Florence without bumping into some building or sculpture o http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-276518.html Since the statue of Davidrsquos site was closed on Monday we decided to try to get a couple of quick shots before leaving. Big mistake. The streets were crawling with tourists and students. There were at least 4 to 5 hundred people waiting in line for David so we decided to skip it and head south.After a couple hours of driving it started to rain hard and there was a bad accident on the freewa http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Puglie/Bari/blog-276522.html We reached port in Piraeus Greece around 1 pm then drove to Athens. Athens is a beautiful city with lots of history but it is very smoggy and dirty. Driving here is a lot of fun if you like dodging cars motorcycles and pedestrians that come at you from every direction. We canrsquot read the traffic signs but not to worry no one seems to obey them anyway. We were lucky and found a spot for the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/Attica/Piraeus/blog-276527.html In February 2008 our team will embark on a new expedition driving from Le Havre France to Cape Town South Africa. Our route is planned to Expedition will take us through Europe heading southeast through France Italy Croatia Serbia Bulgaria Greece to Turkey Syria Lebanon Jordan Egypt the Sudan Ethiopia Kenya Tanzania Zambia Botswana and Namibia then across to the East Coast http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Los-Angeles/LAX/blog-276144.html