Ancient Egypt

this plave looks cool

honestly I don´t know why there is a picture of carrots under this goal

I loved visiting many of the sights of ancient Egypt. We only visited Sakkara, Memphis, and Giza (I would like to visit some of the other sights as well). I enjoyed my time so much. I happen to enjoy riding camels so we rode them in Sakkara and in Giza. The day we were in Sakkara the weather was so nice. There was a breeze and it wasn’t too hot at all. We rode out to a tomb where we were able to explore and look around. In Giza, it was way too hot to be riding around the dessert on camels…especially for someone as fair-skinned as I am. It was still exciting.

However, we were hustled quite a bit while we were there. People wanted Bakshish for everything! One guy even straighted my husband’s headwear and wanted a tip for it. At the pyramids in Giza, we were shuffled to one side of the pyramids where we were told that we would need camels or horses because the walk was so long. Since it was such a hot day, we agreed to take the camels (the horses didn’t look too healthy). Then we soon saw that there was a road going right between the pyramids.

One of the tourist police officers told us that we had to allow one of the guys there to take us on a tour (it wasn’t true and he was paid for it later). Our tour guide took us way off into the dessert on the camels so that we could get a good view of the all 9 pyramids. We did get some nice pictures, but it wasn’t really what we wanted to do. Also, it was so terribly hot! I thought my skin would melt off my body.

My advice for anyone planning to visit Eygpt is to sign up for a tour through Expedia or another travel sight. We were VERY impressed with all of our tours we signed up for. We were not harassed much at all when we were with our tour guides. The tours were well worth the money spent. What I mean is, they were fairly inexpensive for all the tour offered. One of our tours was so nice. We were picked up in a very nice, air-conditioned bus. My husband and I were the only ones in the bus, besides the tour-guide and the driver. We went to Memphis, Sakkara, the Citadel, and the relgious district where we toured the Hanging Church and a Jewish Temple. We also toured a school where they make rugs, a perfume shop, and a papyrus shop where would could buy the goods, but were not pressured to do so. I bought essences of jasmine, papyrus, and lotus flower. I love these purchases and feel that they were well worth the money. The tour guide was really intelligent and patient. We felt very close to her by the end of the tour.

Anyway, I loved visiting the sights of ancient Egypt and would love to visit again. I didn’t get the chance to see inside of the pyramids because I was sick my last day there. I also didn’t get to visit the museum. Egypt is defintily a place I would visit again.

I am traveling with my husband and kids to visit Tunisia this summer. From there, my husband and I are going to leave our kids with his parents and we are going to travel to Egypt for a few days. I am really excited about it. We only have a few days, but my husband and I haven’t traveled alone together…ever! Any suggestions, advice, or comments would be greatly appreciated. We are staying at the Oasis Hotel near the pyramids in Giza. Has anyone stayed there? Thanks!

jan 2007 me and my husband did a week’s cruise on the river nile starting at luxor to the Aswan dam, back to luxor. It was the one of the best holidays we’ve ever had!! Valley of the kings, karak temple and all the other monuments were mind blowing. The weather was great not too hot or crowded at this time of the year. The only blight of the holiday were the touts in Luxor relentless hassel – you are just seen as a walking £ sign. We’ve been to many countries where you are hassled, india, the gambia, turkey but here it was the worst. It wouln’t put me off going to Egypt again as the ancient sights are so worth seeing.
We hope to go back soon to Cairo to the the pyramids.

so much to learn and take in.
i would be in awe.

Going to Egypt is a great experience! A place with so much antiquity, you can’t help but feel awe-strucken. Cairo and Alexandria are among the most breath taking places to go. Alexandria with its newly built Bibliotecha Alexandrina and the Cairo Museum of Antiquity are incredible! The Great Pyramids of Giza are awe-inspiring as well as the Temple of Karnak in Upper Egypt.

It was always a dream for me to go to Egypt. When I was very small, I wanted to be an Egyptologist.

In 1912 archaeologist, Ludwig Borchardt, excavated at Amarna and discovered Nefertiti. He wrote just one thing in his diary: “Description is useless – - see for yourself.” [. . .] In the 12th year of Akhenaten’s reign and at the height of Nefertiti’s powers, she vanished from history. Egyptologists have failed to discover exactly what happened to her. [Fascinating source: http://www.pbs.org/empires/egypt/ definitely worth seeing the program, “Egypt’s Golden Empire.”]

Very extensive written records were kept, however, the Egyptian rulers were fanatical history revisionists, and so frequently documents were “shredded” when there was a change of regime, or change in religious ideology.

Akhenaten (1352 – 1336 BC), by the way, was history’s first recorded proponent of monotheism. “The visible sun” god Aten was worshipped. So no wonder why sunsets in Egypt are always so beautiful . . .