An interesting start to the day, going to a quarry where stones for the Egyptian pyramids and temples were carved (and then sent on the River Nile downstream to the construction sites); there’s a partly carved obelisk there which was abandoned when cracks appeared in the stone, giving us insight into how the work was done maybe 3,500 years ago!
The temple complex Abu Simbel is famous for having been moved when the Aswan Dam reservoir drowned the original location (there’s an interesting video about it); we had a three hour drive from Aswan, starting about 5am!
We arrived at Abu Simbel with many other people but the space is large enough that it didn’t feel too crowded (other than the lines to enter the interior); what amazed me was that there are TWO temples there, for Ramesses II and for his wife Nefertari! It’s incredible to first catch a view of the huge carvings:
I also took some photos of inside:
After the busy time in the Grand Egyptian Museum we flew a couple hours south to Aswan. In the morning our new (and best!) guide Mina arranged an easy day on the River Nile which made for a pleasant change from the chaos of Cairo! The first two photos are the River Nile view from our hotel room; there’s some pics from a botanical garden we stopped at; the last photo is me standing in the River Nile! Notice how green everything is, close to the river …
We also stopped at a Nubian village, where we had lunch in someones home …
In the afternoon we visited a “Roman” temple, the Temple of Satet, which in fact has multiple temples layered one on another back as much as 5000 years! It was easy for us to see newer Roman stone structures on top of older mud brick …
In the evening we took a walk along the river, feeling safe in Aswan (we would not have risked that in Cairo with its traffic everywhere!)
M&I / GBMINI 