Ancient Egypt

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 . . .