Egypt2008

Welcome to our blog of our two week visit in Egypt. One week was spent in Cairo and environs, the second aboard ship on a Nile river cruise. We will find the trip is packed with things to see, and places to go.
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Here, the exterior of the Cairo museum........no pictures inside, alas........

We are welcomed by this family for a home-hosted dinner in Cairo.

Our very first full day in Cairo............our hostess prepares typical fare for us to sample at her home. Small groups of us, some 15 in number, are scattered in various locations.

We see two of the three giant pyramids from our hotel in Giza, just south of Cairo. The tombs hidden inside were looted in antiquity, and all the goods and equipment needed in the afterlife by the entombed pharoahs are long gone.

The absolute immensity of the pyramids is apparent when one approaches and is dwarfed by the size.

Abdul the camel driver escorts queen Barbara ...........

Imagine, we are at a structure some 5,000 years old! These pyramids held the remains of Old Kingdom pharoahs; queens and major royal staffers had smaller tombs. The big ones, like this one for Cheops, was 480 feet tall and was composed of nearly 7 million tons of limestone.

Our visit to the famous Sphinx was on our second full day in Cairo. I grubbed around in the sand but never did find the nose........

We enjoyed a train ride up from Cairo, to see the city of Alexandria and important sites. This is the Roman amphitheatre, undergoing excavation and reconstruction.

This was the only day we had rainy and chilly weather, but not unexpected this far north. We spend some time looking at displays of statues and other artifacts brought up from the waters of the harbor here in Alexandria.

The library in Alexandria was destroyed by the Romans, causing the loss of invaluable ancient documents. Today, the new library is a very modern facility with millions of volumes, a meeting area, a planetarium and other facilities.

On the grounds of the Alexandria library complex, Barb checks out Alexander (the Great). The circular structure behind is the planetarium, with the sea behind.

The fort in Alexandria bay.

King Farouk's summer place in the Montazah gardens, along the Mediterranean. This visit concluded the Alexandria visit.

We did a tour of spiritual Cairo, coincidentally on a Sunday. We see a mosque, in this picture, and also visit a Coptic church and a synagogue.

The famous Cairo bazaar, the Khan El Khalili. Vendors are busy and very aggressive. Here, Barb and Lynne stroll along one of the narrow alleys.

Barb and Lynne chat with two of our guides, who are relaxing with the water pipes. These men were on the ball and did a fine job of seeing we went places and saw things.

This is our personal bodyguard! Really! He followed us around in the bazaar making sure we were not ripped off. He flashed his pistol and all of a sudden got a LOT of respect! Uniformed police with AK-47's are all over........in the airports, at the museums, in the streets, everywhere. They are serious about security.

The very first stop upon flying south to the city of Luxor, is a visit to this temple. Nearly 4000 years old, it has been in nearly continuous use, first by the Egyptians, later by Christians, and a mosque was even built on the top of the sand-covered building. Excavations revealed the orginal temple as we see it today.

Luxor temple exists right in the middle of the modern city. It was from this area that one Pharoah (Thutmose III) planned his campaigns, where Akenaten first contemplated monotheism, and Rameses II started his ambitious building program. King Amenhotep began the temple nearly 4000 years ago, and it was completed much later during the reign of Tutankhanum.

A row of ram-headed sphinxes links Luxor temple with Karnak temple, alongside the Nile.

The paired Colossi of Memnon are undergoing restoration, and the whole area, seen as bare ground behind them, is undergoing archaelogical research to reveal the huge and splendid temple grounds. The area visible is only about one-eighth of the whole temple property.

Barb stands above one of the Colossi of Memnon, all that is left of the entry to one of the hugest temples ever built. It was the Temple of Pharoah Amenhotep III, who died in 1353 BC. It was devastated by earthquakes, and by scavenging by later rulers who used materials for their own temples.

Tourism is big business in Egypt. We are walking ATM's! This is an alabaster factory and sales room.

Workers fashioning alabaster items in time-honored ways.