A week among queens and pharaohs

After waiting so long, the long-awaited trip to Egypt arrives!

Monday 09 July – Day 1...we leave on a scheduled Egyptair flight to Luxor. On arrival we immediately find our Veraclub assistant, who accompanies us to our ship, the Stephanie, where we will spend the following 4 days. We arrive late in the evening, so after a brief taste of the restaurant buffet we treat ourselves to a well-deserved rest... wake-up call scheduled for 4.30... A good start!!!

Tuesday - Day 2 the real tour begins!! In the morning a visit to the Colossi of Memnon... imposing and majestic; then our guide proposes an "extra" that he describes as very beautiful... he thus takes us to the Coloured Temple, a stunning example of the preservation of hieroglyphs that still keep their colours after so much time... hence the temple's name. We continue to the Valley of the Kings, where we manage to visit the interior of some of the most famous pharaohs' tombs... honestly, I expected a little more.... Between what was stolen by looters and what is kept in museums, the tombs are largely empty... what remain are the wonderful hieroglyphs and the spaces where, with imagination, the sarcophagi and treasures were kept. We then move on to the Temple of Hatshepsut... the heat is beginning to be bothersome...

it is around 12.30 and the temperature seems to touch 50°!!!! Fortunately the humidity is practically nil so you don't feel that sense of suffocation that often grips our Italian cities!!! We continue our visit heading into the centre of Luxor, where we visit its famous temple and then move on to what is considered its continuation: that is, the temple of and Karnak. We return on board exhausted by the heat and tiredness... the ship thus begins its navigation towards Esna, passing through the Lock and continuing to Edfu.

Wednesday - Day 3

Wake-up at 7 and departure for the Temple of Edfu and its columns!! We return to the ship and begin navigating towards Kom Ombo... meanwhile we relax in the sun, enjoying the small pool on the ship's deck... small yes but essential to withstand the African sun!! Having reached Kom Ombo we visit the Temple of Sobek/Haroeris... striking for its position right on the banks of the Nile and for the time of the visit... at sunset everything takes on a special charm!! We return to our cruise ship and continue the journey towards Aswan.

Thursday - Day 4

In the morning we get up and set off for the Great Aswan Dam, then continue to the Temple of Philae, in my view one of the most beautiful we visited; to reach it we had to take a boat because this temple stands on an island... it was not its original site, but as the dam had to be built they had to move it to prevent it from ending up below water level. In the end we return to the ship, have lunch, and for the afternoon a felucca trip on the Nile is planned, the typical boats that can be seen along the whole course of the river; then on to a visit to the Nubian village!

Friday - Day 5 (Aswan/Abu Simbel/Cairo)

The day has come to leave the ship for good and take a plane directly to Abu Simbel... on arrival we visit the most imposing and fascinating archaeological site I have ever seen!! Having got off the coach we walk along a desert path overlooking Lake Nasser, in front of us an apparently insignificant mountain, and then, as we go around it, we find ourselves before an unequalled spectacle... the Temple dedicated to the pharaoh Ramses II and the somewhat smaller temple dedicated to his wife, Queen Nefertari. At the end of the visit we return to the airport and take a flight to Cairo. On arrival we transfer to the Hotel Meridien Pyramids, where we can relax by the pool enjoying a spectacular view of the Pyramids!

Saturday - Day 6

We wake up in the shade of the Pyramids, breakfast and set off to visit the city: we begin with the Mosque of Mohamed Ali, also called the Alabaster Mosque, which with its very slender minarets and great dome is one of the symbols of CAIRO; you enter through the courtyard where the clock tower stands, given by the French king in exchange for the obelisk of the Luxor temple (the clock has never worked). Our day continues through the streets of Cairo, reaching the Egyptian Museum; the visit is shorter than needed but enough to admire (even if quickly) all the works inside and above all the magnificent treasure of TUTANKHAMUN...

it is hard to describe the feeling of having before you a treasure of such inestimable historical value!! After the museum visit we have lunch in a local restaurant and then head to the Khan El Khalili Bazaar, where, in my opinion, you make the best purchases!! Don't let the guides trick you into buying in the shops they suggest, passing them off as the only ones selling original souvenirs... they are all the same... the only difference is that in the "partnered" shops the guides get a commission on the sale!! In the evening they offer us the optional visit to the Pyramids to attend the sound and light show... we all immediately refuse because the tour operator was asking €25 per person; a young man from our group then goes to talk to a taxi driver, who tells him that the ticket for the show costs €9 per person and that to take us there he asks €1 each...

so we and a few other intrepid souls decide to venture out on our own by taxi, and the decision definitely paid off... €15 saved and the fun in the taxi is priceless!! Moreover the show is particularly striking, and the mere image of the three great Pyramids and the Sphinx lit up repays the ticket price!!

Sunday - Day 7

Last day in Cairo... in the morning a visit to the Giza area with the three great Pyramids, the Sphinx... what can I say... standing there in the presence of these incredible and majestic works of human genius leaves you speechless and certainly with questions about how and when they could have been erected! We then visited the Museum of the Solar Boat found intact, though "dismantled", at the foot of one of the Pyramids... it is said to have served to ferry the Pharaoh after death. The day continues with the excursion to the Necropolis of Sakkhara with the Step Pyramid and the colossus (never was a term more apt) of Memphis. We return to the hotel, where we have dinner and reluctantly pack our suitcases... tomorrow we leave... for some the holiday ends here, for others (fortunately also for us) it continues in Sharm El Sheikh for a week of sea and relaxation!