Basma Aswan

Aswan train station was chaotic. Mainly because everybody got off, and the platform was crowded with porters wanting to help us take our luggage. Luckily small groups are easy to inform and keep an eye on, so Sobhi swiftly found one guy who would help us get to our nicely air conditioned van, which would take us to our hotel. Too bad we were only supposed to be here for one night, because the Basma Hotel was pretty awesome! The room was enormous, the hotel overall looked as one of the cleanes...

We reached Alexandria that evening via a 3hr road trip. Alexandria is a city on the Mediterranean founded by Alexander the Great in 332BC, and was the capital of Egypt during the Ptolemaic period. It was the location for the Pharos lighthouse, another of the 7 ancient wonders of the world. Unfortunately the lighthouse no longer remains, having been destroyed in an earthquake. Now the 15th Century Fort of Qayt Bay occupies the original site. The following day we visited the Catacombs, the Alex...

We arrived in Aswan during the prior evening. We were able to disembark the boat to go into the city. We watched how Egyptians made pizza, visited the Bazaar and even saw some of the festivities occuring in celebration of the Egyptian football league's 100th anniversary. In the morning, we disembarked the MS Nile Romance for the final time and checked into the Basma Hotel. This hotel looked over the Mosque, the Koptic Church and the Aswan Bazaar. While we were at the hotel an international gr...

We went to the unfinished obelisk in the morning. This granite quarry held pink granite of a huge unfinished obelisk as well as 2 unfinished sarcophagi, a colossus and a smaller unfinished obelisk. We were able to see how different granite artifacts were carved out whole. Afterwards, we stopped at a jewelry story. Instead of visiting the jewelry store though, we walked across the street to a papyrus museum (aka: papyrus store). We then visited Koptic Church on our own time during lunch. After...

After a long, long train journey of 18 hours, which threw out our schedule of sight seeing, we finally arrived at our hotel for the night and following very quick showers we all met downstairs to go off to a restaurant for a combined lunch and dinner. It was a beautiful meal of Egyptian food on a floating restaurant on the Nile. The long hours on the train were quickly forgotten - well until Hany our guide advised that those who had taken up the option to go to the Abu Simbel Temples would be...

Woke up beside the Nile near Qena, north of Luxor.

Our first day on our own in Aswan, we checked into our hotel and were completely in awe with the view. We stayed at Hotel Basma which sits on a big hill overlooking the city of Aswan and the Nile at its first cataract where it’s divided by many green islands and gorgeous. We headed out and met our guide Mary – a Christian Egyptian woman – for our visit to the Nubian village.

The Nubian village we visited was on Soheil Island that comes close enough to the wes...

This morning was was pretty neat as I woke up at 6:00 A.M. to the sound of the crashing Mediterranean Sea, and the traffic of the Corniche (the long road which traverses the Mediterranean).  Sam and I decided that because it was so warm in our room, we would sleep with our balcony door open for the fresh air, and boy was it welcomed.  I went down to enjoy the Continental breakfast, which to me sounded like it would be donuts, coffee and orange juice, but turned out to be a full breakfast of a...

Ce matin, c'est notre dernier moment à vivre sur le bateau. À notre sortie de la cabine, le pont est désert et à notre entrée dans la salle de repas, seul le couple de Suisse est présent. Le bateau a été déserté par toutes ces personnes qui ont donné tant de charme à cette croisière. Ils nous manqueront c'est sûrs... en fait ils nous manquent déjà. Ce moment passé sur le Sudan a été magique, inoubliable... C'est avec un peu de peine que nous terminons notre petit déjeuner et avec beaucoup de ...

Balade en felouque autour de l'île d'éléphantine. Le vent souffle avec force à Assouan, il nous assure une bonne allure pour atteindre l'île aux fleurs. Ce jardin botanique a été construit sur les fondements d'une base militaire par un colonel anglais appelé pour mater la révolte soudanaise. Il comporte une allée de palmiers royaux. Ce palmier est vierge et comporte un tronc lisse et blanc coupé d'anneaux bruns. Cet arbre est rare dans ce pays car très cher et uniquement utilisable pour l'orn...