La Maison De Pythagore Luxor

... of the day – the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut (to remember it: “Hat” “Cheap” “Suit”). This temple was amazing, rising out of the sheer limestone cliffs like a mighty fortress – a partly rock-cut, partly freestanding temple. Many consider this temple to be one of Egypt’s finest monuments – and unlike many of the sites we’ve already seen in Egypt, this temple remains in very good condition ...

... a peek into the Egyptian village life. The countryside, still very ancient in the way that people live in clay huts, plough fields manually and use animal pulled carts as vehicles, can be viewed first hand by the passengers while sunbathing on the deck of a cozy ship.

Depending on your choice, you can avail of Nile River Cruises of short or long duration. The shorter trips to Egypt, lasting for three or four days usually Nile River Cruises Ships between ...

... in Egypt, mainly because it is just such an indescribably different place. Luckily, we met some very nice people on our Nile cruise ship that were kind enough to invite us to sit with them for meals. By the end of our trip we had a little Egypt-family of our own. It was very nice and made us feel a little bit more at home. We get to look forward to one more meal tonight and then we get back on the death-train back to Cairo, so we are pumped about that.

... see when they put down the chisel before they had to bury their king. An amazing tomb. The other two we made it into was Tawosret/Sethnakht tomb and Ramses IV. Taworsret/Sthnakht tomb the wife of Seti II has been open since antiquity, it and it shows with the amount of damage. It does however have amazing roof decorations. The most crowded of the three was Ramses IV tomb, which can be dated back to 278BC. Ramses died before the tomb was completed ...

... but Thuthmosis tomb was bit of a climb and was VERY humid!

Hatshepsuts temple and the workers village were also great (got to FINALLY see the amazing images drawn in the tomb of Sennedjem which I have always wanted to see!!!). The local museum is good but seems to be waiting for more stuff lol!!

Off into the Sahara tomorrow! YAY!

Richy :)

... hard to imagine what they could have done if their energy had been focused in a different direction.

Anyway, the night before heading to the Cairo Museam we learned an unfortunate fact that was probably in the fine print, but I never bothered to check and made the assumption that GAP would try to organize the best tour possible (which I've learned is the wrong assumption...). The mummy room at the Cairo Museam, housing 11 royal mummies, was not included in our ...

... prayers, annointment, and animal sacrifices to the gods. Truly amazing. The heat of the day (36 degress) made a visit to this site difficult and Bonnie and I were virtually attached to our water bottle. Later that night we returned to attend a Sound and Light show, which in the darkness of the night left me with an eerie feeling, as if the souls of all who had pssed before us were still present in the shadows. Either that, or the exposure to the day's sun had turned my ...

... graphic art and associated hieroglyphic writing.  The art is more stylised and circumscribed in its range of forms than, for instance, the ancient Greeks (for whom there are far fewer artefacts in good condition), but its quality and attention to fine detail is amazing and one cannot say that today's artists do any better, or even as well. Because ancient Egypt is best known for its monumental and treasure crammed tombs, many people think of the civilisation as having a ...

... We kept on driving and we finally made it to Luxor. When we got to the hotel some of the group had to stay and talk to the man that would take them on the hot balloon ride in the morning but I went and enjoed a nice hot shower!!! It is so good to be back at the Emilio. I took out all the clothes that I needed to be washed and then took out everything from my suitcase and shook out all of the sand - I made a nice little pile on the floor!! I also noticed just how damaged my suitcase is ...

... of all sorts of colors.

We headed back to the boat and spent the afternoon on the pool deck enjoying the sun and the pool as we sailed up the Nile to Edfu and the Temple of Edfu. Temple of Edfu was our first experience with Greco Roman "Egyptian" temples. The scale of the carvings is a lot bigger – more quantity than quality like we’d seen elsewhere. The huge columns are the same, but the tops have more of a Roman influence and had lots of different styles ...