Back to the Land of the Pharaohs

"Egypt is a palimpsest in which the Bible is written over Herodotus, and the Koran over that." - Lucie Duff Gordon, 1865

We liked it so much the first time, we're going back.  Only this time, instead of a big guided tour, we are going to be, mostly, on our own.  We will be in the town of Luxor for the first half of the trip, visiting all the monuments, tombs, museums, and local villages, restaurants, markets and other wonders.

We will also be traveling in the very little traveled area between Luxor and Cairo, where there are many amazing and beautiful things to see...ancient towns, temples, tombs and even an old Coptic church or two.  We will end up for a couple of days in Cairo.

Recently, the Egyptian government has introduced the Luxor Red Pass. For a flat fee, you can visit all the open monuments, tombs and museums as many times as you want over a five day period. This means that we will be able to go to the tombs of Nefertari and Seti 1, which we had to pay a very high fee for last year because they were "closed to the public", as many times as we want. When you add up all the open tombs (there are four major ancient necropolises), temples, monuments and museums, this should keep us quite busy for a week.

The tomb of Nefertari.

Funerary temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu...

Temple of Amun Ra at Karnak...

Temple of Luxor...

Temple of Hatshepsut...

The original pyramid...the Step Pyramid at Saqqara.

Karnak...

As always, you are invited to come along on our adventure, as we continue to search the world for the ancient, amazing, bizarre and beautiful places, the tasty and different cuisine, and most of all friendly and amazing people.