Paris and Cairo

01/27/2018 Wake call at 4:45 a.m. and breakfast at 5:00 a.m.  Boarded the bus at 6;00 for Alexandria for about a 3 hour trip north to the largest port in Egypt--on the Mediterranean Sea.  It was the capital and established by Alexander the Great in 300 B.C.  It looked a lot like Cairo, except there were more occupied high rises (over a million condos in high rises in Cairo were abandoned).  Here are two high rises.  If you look close, it looks like the building on the left is supporting the building on the right; in fact, the building on the right actually leans on the building on the left.  I think building codes are non-existent here.  High rise condos in Alexandria And here are typical scenes in the streets of Alexandria. typical street the ladies in their burkas, shopping the men on the sidewalk smoking their hookas Our first stop were the catacombs.  We walked down about 3...

01/25/2018 Another early morning.  Wake up call at 3:45 a.m. and luggage out by 4:00 a.m.  We had breakfast in a bag, and driven to the Luxor airport for a flight to back to Cairo at 7:30.  The flight was delayed 1 hour, and the traffic in Cairo and Giza was very bad.  We stopped at the Pyramid Restaurant in Giza for lunch--another awful Egyptian meal. We arrived at the Mena House Hotel at 3:30 p.m. (another 11 hour traveling day).  We were both spent.  Tom fell asleep, I had a hot bath and caught up on my emails and log book.  We went to the restaurant for dinner and had another bad meal, and called it quits for tonight. 01/26/2018 Wake up call at 6:15.  Breakfast at 6:30, and bus left at 7:00 for the Citadel and the Mosque in Cairo.  I was about a 1/2 hour drive.  The complex was very large and my legs would not move.  Tom and I both stayed on the bus.  Here a two pictures of the Citadel and the view of Ca...

1/23/18 We docked in Luxor during the night.  We had a wake up call at 6:30 for a boat ride to the west bank.  These motorboats on the Nile are very busy.  Here is a picture of the motorboat. motorboat on the Nile On the west bank, we got on a bus toward the Valley of the Kings, where there are 62 tombs of kings and nobles.  Before we got there, we stopped at the Colossi of Memnon.  These are two huge ruined statues, around 56 feet tall.  They once stood at the entrance gate of the temple of Amenhotep III.  Very little remains of the temple behind them.  They were cut from two massive granite blocks, brought from quarries near Cairo. The Colossi of Memnon In the hills behind them, you can see other structures and tombs. Hills behind Colossi of Memnon We arrived at the Valley of the Kings.  This is where the tomb of  King Tutankhamun was discovered in 1922.  We visited 3 tombs, Merenptah, Rameses IX, and...