This is a brief overview of our recent Egyptian trip in April 2005. It was amazing to actually be there and see these ancient temples, tombs and pyramids that date back so far. To put it into perspective: We are presently closer to the birth of Christ than the birth of Christ is to the building of the earliest Egyptian tombs and temples (3500 B.C.). We will not delve into the massive Egyptian history, culture and mythology as this would be too involved. This is all available if you do a search on the web. 

We managed to see almost everything we had hoped to see during our trip. All the sights and sites we went to were located along the Nile. From the Northern most point of Alexandria on the Mediterranean sea to the Southern most spot called Abu Simbel on Lake Nasser (about 50 km [30 miles] North of the Sudanese border).

The area with the most temples surrounding it was Luxor (the ancient city of Thebes) where we saw the greatest variety of hieroglyphs, carved statues and images. The temples we went to were Luxor, Karnak, Habu, Hatshepsut and the Ramesseum. We also went into the Valley of the Kings where the majority of Pharaohs were buried. We went into four of these tombs. Please look at our photographs to get some idea of the magnificence of these creations. Here the temperature reached 36 degrees C.

We did a 6 day Nile cruise south from Luxor and were taken to at least five more temples en route and ended up in Aswan visiting the quarry of the unfinished obelisk. The cruise was a highlight of the trip and was most relaxing and surreal. Along the banks of the Nile nothing seemed to have changed for thousand of years, as there were no modern farms or developments to be seen. 

From Aswan we traveled by coach through the Sahara to Abu Simbel, the site of two of the most impressive temples with exceptionally large statues. When the Aswan High dam was built forming Lake Nasser, five temples were rescued from being submerged and reconstructed above the waterline. This was the hottest point of our trip with the temperature reaching 41 degrees C. 

We started and ended our trip in Cairo, where we visited the Sphinx and pyramids. This crazy city of 16 million people is vibrant with the medieval Khan el Khalili market, the impressive Egyptian Museum, many Mosques and Coptic churches. On a drive further South we visited the step pyramid at Saqqara and the fallen Colossus of Ramesses at Memphis nearby. 

Finally, we drove from Cairo, on a 3-laned motorway, 250 kms (155 miles) to Alexandria on the Mediterranean, situated along the top left-hand side of the Nile delta. What surprised us was that it has a tall built up beachfront of 65 kms (40 miles) long. One of the reasons for this is that it is sandwiched between an inland fresh water lake & the sea. We visited a Greco-Roman Amphitheatre & the Alexandria Library. Another interesting site was Fort Qait Bey, used between 800AD & 1100AD. What is currently fascinating are discoveries of ruins, statues and artifacts up to 9 km out to sea. Both of the cities of Hercules (Heraklion) and the one that Cleopatra lived in collapsed during a large Earthquake in the first century A.D.

Written by Elke & Jeremy