Recollections and writings on four holidays in Egypt in 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023. Exploring the ancient sites, and a doing a bit of meeting the locals, with my views on a few things.
I had allowed myself 4 days in Cairo to visit the new Grand Egyptian Museum, that isn't open yet. I was looking at 2 days, possibly 3, in the GEM which is only a short walk from my hotel, and then a day deciding what to do next. A visit to Alexandria is still on the cards to explore an old family connection there, but the weather in Alex in February is not good...
In any case I have two days to fill which is easy enough because I have not been to Saqqara since 2017, and since my last visit things have changed.
And I have also been told I should visit the New Museum of Egyptian Civilisation.
Saqqara is a little bit of a journey out from Giza, the time varies with how fast the taxi driver can go... But about 45 minutes is average...
The boss in my hotel is only too happy to sell me a car and guide for the morning, except I don't want the guide, which is going be either him or his father. (The father has lived in the The States I believe so his English is very good, the son's not so good).
He looks a bit disappointed but to be honest I find that guides get in the way, and want to rush you from one place to another too quickly, which is what happened on my last visit. As it turned out my driver was quite a good guide anyway and in exchange I bought him lunch.
The trip cost 60 USD, (I could have used LE but he preferred USD), which included my lunch and the basic entry ticket to Saqqara, I opted to buy the 'extras' ticket which cost a further 180 LE on top of the 200LE I had already paid via the driver. If you have the time an the inclination I would recommend going the whole hog and buying the 440 LE ticket which cover just about everything as it works out cheaper.
Arriving outside the actual site there were the usual souvenir sellers, but of course you are not obliged to buy anything! And anyway they charge far too much, but you are allowed to haggle to your heart's content, but i wouldn't bother because they don't have a very good range of stuff, better to reserve a day and go to proper shops. One of them spoke with a strong West Midlands accent,mainly because he had lived in Wolverhampton for a lot of his life.
Inside Saqqara I was not disappointed as I could now see the Step Pyramid properly, last time I was here it was covered in scaffolding,and also there were fewer visitors so it was quite uncrowded, and I managed to tag on to a group that had an English speaking guide... Always a plus! Somewhere along the line I completely lost my sense of direction during the short video clip, that's not Cairo in the distance at all! Some of the nobles tombs are included in the extras ticket others are not even included in the full ticket.
The Museum of Imhotep is not open as they are giving it a makeover, but all around Saqqara there is more digging going on...
I didn't get a chance to see this on my last visit because the guide was in a hurry...
Just a few pictures but not enough to spoil your visit!
And now we come to a bit about the dreaded mobile phone syndrome.
I don't know how we coped before we had them, 50 years ago if you went on holiday you contacted your family and friends by sending them a picture postcard, depending on where you had gone, and for how long, it was quite usual for you to get back home before the cards did.
These days we seem to have to be in almost constant communication with the rest of the world all of the time, why this should be i really don't know, but I suppose I am as bad as everyone else!
Apart from the normal landlines which is how the internet is still done in most countries, not even fibre optic in many places, Egypt has a fully developed mobile phone system with generally excellent coverage, unless you are in the desert of course because the camels don't use the internet..... The technology of the system is such that you can bring your own mobile with you and it will work.... Generally the coverage is on the 4G network, during my recent trip, over 8 weeks, there was only one occasion when the signal was less than 4G, and that was in a taxi in an underpass in Cairo...
There are 4 main operators, Vodafone, EtiSalat, Orange, and We (Telecom Egypt), to date on various visits I have used 3 of them and found the service overall to be very good, reliable, and economic. You can look them up on the internet to see what deals they are doing for visitors and then buy a SIM card at the airport.
I don't do this because there are always queues at the airport desks, and also I have found that if you find a mobile shop near to where you are staying you will often get a better deal than the standard tourist ones!
This time around I used We where the shop in Giza gave me 4 SIM cards, ideal if you a family or group, for 156LE which included 22.5 Gb of data and 1000 minutes of local calls, (useful because I have friends there I like to chat to), but only 30 SMS, certainly enough for me. Unless you are going to be streaming movies 22.5 Gb is a lot. Each SIM had its own account and could be recharged separately. the basic credit lasted a month but could be topped up which some tourist cards cannot.
Contrary to what you might hear, you can get access to Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp. I don't know why some people have the idea they are banned in Egypt, but what I can tell you is that some of the packages sold by the companies might not include some features, for instance I have friends there who can use WhatsApp for pictures movies and general messaging, even audio messages, but they cannot make an audio or video call. for that they use Messenger or Skype.
What is difficult is if for some strange reason you try to use a VPN because these are not allowed and they are blocked although there are a couple that the government haven't found out about yet so I was able to use those if I needed to appear as though I was in my home country.
So in a small nutshell there is a bit about mobiles and the internet!
Many hotels have a data cap, as do a lot of people in their homes, so although you might apparently have an internet connection nothing seems to happen. What happens here usually is that the staff manage to consume all the data watching videos on YouTube and there is nothing left for the guests!! A bit unfair but life rarely is fair.
A little note about mobiles if you are over 60 and can stay longer than 30 days...
Theoretically your SIM card should be cut off as you cannot get one without a valid visa, and if you are over 60 and staying for a longer period then your visa has expired so you cannot still have an active SIM card.
In practice I have found this doesn't happen because it seems it has to be cut off manually!
As every Egyptian will be happy to tell you without being asked, Egypt is currently going through a bit of a crisis and the Egyptian Pound, LE, has been allowed to float, the follow on as a result of the Egyptian Govt using the import 'escrow' to pay for other things rather than the imports it was supposed to be used for.....
While prices have risen in the last few months because of the fall in the value of the LE it also means that visitors are now getting more LE for their USD/GBP/Euro.
The end result of this is that many prices for tourists have fallen because for instance the rate of exchange for LE to GBP has risen by almost 50%.
This makes Egypt an even cheaper place to go than it was before!
Many tourists are still taking wads of cash with them and it really is not necessary because there are ATMs available almost everywhere, so by all means take some cash with you, indeed you will have to because your hotel if you have not already paid for it in advance will need to be paid using foreign currency, it's the law.
Many hotels will now take a card of course, but for small amounts cash is still preferred! They will take USD, GBP, or Euros (as a last resort), but do keep an eye on the exchange rate bearing in mind that the Euro is now worth more than a USD.
And note that some places do not actually have access to an exchange facility so they will want LE!
If you have to round the bill up by a couple of dollars/pounds/euros because you only have larger foreign bills then don't be frightened to do so as the hotel owner probably will not have small bills or even coins to give you change, and in true Egyptian style you probably will not get any change anyway!
To be honest, as a Westerner, I feel their pain with the way prices are going at the moment, especially for energy and gasoline which in Egypt is now around 12 LE a litre, up from 6LE four years ago. (I will do the sums for you 12 LE is almost exactly 33 pence in UK money).
It is becoming increasingly difficult to change cash these days as none of the banks will now do it and there are fewer official licensed money shops that will give you the top rate, beware of people that will change money for you including your hotel as they are going to make a profit out of it. There are also illegal money dealers who will meet you in dark alleys and them give you only 20 or 25LE to the USD when it should be about 30!
So the first thing to do is get some local currency at the airport from one of the many ATMs available, there is a huge 'bank' of them in the baggage reclaim area.
Get yourself a card that allows you to make cash withdrawals without charge. For people in the UK this means something like the Halifax Clarity card, which makes no charge for using it to buy goods abroad or take cash from an ATM, and also gives you top whack exchange rates through the Mastercard system. Some people, of course, have a similar card that works through the Visa system. either way the exchange rates are good.
Avoid the use of ordinary ATM cards because they will charge you a commission and give you a crap exchange rate, unless you have one that does otherwise.
Use the ATMs that give you the choice of it exchanging the money for you or allowing you to let your home bank do it because they give you a rotten exchange rate and sometimes charge you commission for changing it as well.
Avoid Euronet ATMs at all costs because they either change the money up for you at a really bad exchange rate or if you choose to let your bank do it then they charge you 100LE for the pleasure of using their machine. 100LE/EGP at 36 LE to a GBP doesn't sound like much but it is 3 quid or two beers!
There are also 'cyberbanks', like Revolut, that give excellent exchange rate but you do have to pay for a physical card.
Don't forget that carrying a card is also more secure than carrying cash wherever you go, innocent and inexperienced tourists are a target for thieves. I personally have not carried a lot of cash on me for years because there is now no need! But for added security I do have two cards I can use leaving one in a safe place in my room just in case.
If you are looking for an ATM head to the nearest mobile phone shop as they normally have one if not two ATMs outside.
Back to the traffic... I am staying in Giza instead of central Cairo because I am 'hoping' to go to the GEM, I don't think I will stay in Giza again unless it is somewhere central becuase I am out on the Alex Desert Road and it just a tad too far to walk into Giza, but very convenient to walk to the GEM which isn't open. I did try walking but because of the road works I had to take a big detour, and taxis have to do the same, indeed throughout Cairo detours of 3/4 kilometres just to take a U turn and come back again, are not unusual.
In Giza near the Pyramids they are building a new Metro line which has closed Al Haram down to Giza Square.... No wonder that taxis try to avoid some areas!
And lastly on this post the sensitive subject of tipping....
Did you know that you are not obliged to tip anybody??
Personally, having lived in Australia, I don't tip anybody. Other nationalities seem to tip everybody for no particular reason! (You know who you are!)
My idea of a tip is to give a taxi driver a £5 note for a £4.90 fare and tell him to keep the change, because I have enough loose change already.
And I positively loathe the system, widely used in the USA and Canada, where you are paying by card and they have already added on a tip that you have to cancel off the card reader before you tap or insert your card to pay.
Why are you giving them a tip for doing their job?
In Trip Advisor recently I was reading a travel report from somebody visiting Egypt where the writer said keep a good stock of one dollar bills/coins to use as tips. (They also said they felt like a walking ATM machine but that is not surprising either)
Why? There is no earthly reason to tip somebody in Egypt, and indeed a one dollar coin or bill is no earthly use to them because they cannot change it! Similarly with a Pound or Euro coin. And even if the tip is bigger then they might not have any way of getting it changed so it will end up in the hands of an illegal currency dealer who will give them a crap rate for it.
If I feel that somebody has gone over and above the call of duty then maybe I will tip, like lugging a heavy suitcase for me, but they will get nothing for watching me lift it myself.
And the same goes for waiters and bartenders.
Even if you do tip there is a limit. Why give a toilet attendant 5 USD when all they normally get is 1LE, it used to be a lot less but all the small coins seem to have disappeared these days?
If you feel that somebody has done a particularly good job for some reason, then yes, like I did by buying my barman a drink at the end of my recent stay. He got a beer which cost 50 LE.
And wherever did the idea come from that you had to give the chambermaid something everyday just to do her job, but fine if she has gone over the top and give her something at the end of your stay if you wish, much like in days of old when you were staying at an English country house when you tipped the butler, but those days have gone, and so has the tip!
If you do have a stock of foreign coinage give it to the children who ask for baksheesh, they will be delighted they have got something even though it is worthless to them, although it would be cheaper to give them 1 LE coins!
And beware of people asking you for baksheesh too, don't give them anything because some of them actually have businesses. I came across one on the East Bank in Luxor who was asking for baksheesh and the Egyptian sitting next to me shooed him away and then informed me that he owned a tuk tuk but was too idle to go out and drive it!
English people will feel quite at home with the new Egyptian 10LE note..Although this one is not looking good since it went through the wash on a hot wash.
Vaguely familiar perhaps? To start with I thought I had been given a dud note.
After my last visit I did a couple of updates on new discoveries but didn't include the 'Dazzling'' city of Aten not far from the Colossi of Memnon...
Excavation work has been continuing apace here for a while but as yet it is not open to the public....
So you are saved one bit of history!!
Moving right along... The Valley of the Queen's gets a bit neglected I am sorry to say, mainly I supposed because it is not quite so ''exciting'' and doesn't contain the tomb of King Tut, Seti, etc., etc., etc.,
Indeed I myself have neglected it in the past and so time to make amends..
Mentioning my thoughts to the boy, he promptly offered to take me there at a 'special rate' which means I am going to have to buy lunch again, and that as we are heading that way it will probably be in the subterranean cafe in Al Qarnah, their speciality is pigeon by the way... As it turned out the price i had to pay was to get the car fully valetted for the occasion, this cost me the grand total of about £3.50 (70 LE), plus two cups of tea, 20 LE..
This again was an experience which most tourists don't get, i never knew that washing a car needed so much shouting, and while it was being done I was sat on a bench with 3 elderly Egyptians who insisted on speaking German to me, in the end I gave up telling them I was English and replied with my very limited German.
Now one thing we all know about the Valley of the Queen's is that is contains the tomb of Nefertari which is the main reason for going there..... Or so I thought until I looked at the price of the tickets..... To see the tomb of Queen Nefertari will set you back a whopping 1400 EGP or 70 quid in English money.
And I am sorry I am just no paying that so I settle for the normal ticket of 100 EGP (a fiver)..
The Queen's Valley is a lot less crowded than the King's indeed it is quite pleasantly uncrowded and there is a really strong north west wind blowing straight down the valley which means I had to take the Panama off.
And like the King's Valley the landscape is somewhat alien and pitted with holes everywhere..
I must say the tombs here are impressive, not in size perhaps but in the quality of carving and in the colours that have survived thousands of year. Oh if only modern paint manufacturers could make paint that lasted that long today..
i have already made the comment that one camera has given up the ghost, and the Canon is rapidly depleting its battery so I am reduced to a phone camera which means I can at least take a video.
The Egyptian Govt has given up charging for using cameras these days, mainly because every phone is now a camera and they couldn't make people leave their phones at the ticket office as there would be thousands of them in cubby holes, they do still charge for a camera tripod though...
So I got to see three tombs, which from the set up appear to be the only 3 that are open, apart from Nefertari's, although if you look around the place is full of burial shafts and other 'walk in' tombs which are not open... For some reason the tomb of Queen Titi, (Teyet) ahs a large sign on the door saying NO PHOTOGRAPHS, and the man in charge was applying this quite rigourously, although no doubt a 100LE note pressed into the palm of his hand would have changed his mind.
I did take a couple of stills inside but the conditions for photography are difficult because all the walls are protected by perspex screens to keep sticky fingers at bay, and of course the screens are not only dusty but do have sticky finger marks on them so you have to contend with that and also the reflections from the lights.
Hopefully though you can still see the carvings and colouring sufficiently well to be impressed!
By the way on the way out the the man in charge of the ''very clean toilets'' has taken the price for Nefertari's tomb to heart and is asking a piss taking price of 5 LE as against the normal 1 LE, (it used to be less than that but they seems to have stopped using all the piastra coins these days).
Needless to say he only got 1 LE from me and nothing from some other people,,, so on with the videos..
Firstly the tomb of Prince Amenkhopshef...
And second the tomb of Prince Sethherkhopshef...
And sadly I am now getting near to end of my stay because it is Saturday 19th February and tomorrow I have to get a pcr test, but still more time for a bit of out and about!! Meanwhile a picture of the resident dog at the Valley of the Queen's, and like the King's Valley the people trying to sell you alabaster and papier mache statues and replicas are a bloody nuisance....
Just in case you thought that Arabic was difficult to read, this picture proves otherwise, clearly you can read what is says!
And below.... This is dried tamarind, seeds, stalks, leaves, the lot I am told. These balls cost the princely sum of 50New English Pence each so I am taking some home with me to see if I can use them for making curry!
We have done noises in the night,
so here are some noises during the day.
In any Egyptian city and even in the middle of nowhere you will get the 'prayers' at certain times of the day.
This particular lot of prayers sounds more like a speech at a political rally, but the again maybe it is just that!
Certainly you can here it above the sound of the traffic...
And now a bit more about Egyptians... Egyptians always have something for sale, exactly what it is they are trying to sell is never quite clear... You know how it goes, you have just come off the ferry from the East Banks and immediately somebody will try to sell you a taxi, very cheap, very good price, Egyptian price... Having refused the taxi you will then be offered a boat to the East Bank, even though you have quite clearly just come from there... But it will be cheap, you know how much?
No I don't know how much but you are about to tell me.. And if i refuse that I will be offered a felucca for a 'sunset hour' or Banana Island cruise...
If you keep on refusing various modes of transport they will usually run out of options and in the end offer you a cotton scarf...
Much the same happens with property, they stick a for sale sign up but nobody knows what it is they are trying to sell... And even if you ask you will not find out! And naturally they are having to sell it because they need the money, well actually they don't and this is another similarity with Greeks, many Egyptians own more than one apartment block.
Of course there are some that are as poor as church mice, but many are not, so we don't believe the sob story either!
And then there is the man that wants to sell the family silver for no apparent reason. Or at least a faulty reason... Take the man that has three apartments and wants to sell one of them to buy a new car.
Why does he want a new car?
Well at present he has a car provided by one of the tour companies and he is at their beck and call to take people from Luxor to Hurghada, (and other places), for which they pay him the sum of 200 EGP....The going rate for the trip is 1700 EGP but this man thinks that he will make a lot more money than 200 EGP by buying his own car... Wrong of course because apart from the cost of the car there are all the associated bills so unless he is going to do three trips a day he is not going to make anything, and in the meantime he has lost the cash flow from the apartment he has sold...
This same man is currently doing a bit of building work on one of his apartments and he needs 1500 EGP, (why is it always 1500EGP they need?), very cheekily he has asked me if I would like to make a future booking and pay in advance the sum of 1500 EGP... Why he needs the money I do not know but he could have saved quite a lot if sign writing because he has put his name and phone number on the outside of my apartment... Except that nobody is going to see it because there is a high wall between the building and the street...
Decoration I can understand but he could have saved the cash having his name and phone number written!!
This sign writing can't be seen from the street either....
And even more amusing the table in the top photo has LED lights inside the top and lots of holes drilled in the top... Why????
Meanwhile elsewhere in the 'garden' he has constructed a 'puddle' for producing is own bricks and plaster for his buildings..
Egyptians are naturally noisy as well...
Down by the ferry there is continuous shouting going on since they moved the arrival point for the public ferry on the east bank, an enterprising band of locals is now running an almost scheduled service across the river to the old arrival point by Luxor Temple, and many are using it because it saves a long walk!
And Egyptians are incredibly cheeky if you let them get away with it, this one (below) seems to think we are ''one''.... Which means it is quite ok for me to buy him lunch on a daily basis...
And we will finish off with a bit of Egyptian music and a belly dancer...
And Egyptian men always seem to have enormous feet....
I have given u trying to catch up on the blogs that were missed for now, so on with the current stuff and then the rest will follow out of chronological order and you will never know!
When i said i wanted to go to the market everybody thought I just wanted to get the ferry cross the River to the souk to buy a bit of fruit and veg and maybe some spices...
No I want to go to a proper market where they sell camels and horses and animals..
Really?? Yes really.
I don't know why anybody should think it strange that I can milk a cow, or that I want to know how much a camel costs.
Or why I should even be interested in farm animals, but surely I am not the only person who has lived on a farm for a few years, or indeed there must be many that own farms in other countries who might be interested.
After a bit of discussion it seems that the best/nearest livestock market to go to is at Armant about 20kms south of Luxor. For a really big camel market you need to go down to Aswan which is a bit too far... In fact the market is not in Armant at all but to the west almost in the hills and right on the edge of the agricultural belt.
Armant is about centre in the map with the little blue marker..
Map courtesy of Google of course...
So I am up bright an early to leave at 6 am, I should have known that not a lot was going to happen going to happen at that time of day except breakfast...
A couple of wrong turns later and we finally got there, and the easiest way to show you is with a bit of video .
And it was just what I expected... In a lot of ways it was just like an English livestock market with lots of farmers sitting around drinking tea, (instead of beer), and more than likely discussing the weather and the price of oats and note the almost total lack of 'western' clothing, out here not a lot has changed for a thousand years, except of course they now have a lot more water for crops....
Exceptionally though there was not an auctioneer, everything is sold by battering for it....
And how strange the breeds are compared to the ones we see in Europe... Some might say the cattle are underfed but you see them chomping their way through food and realise they are not underfed it is just the way they are.
Donkeys there are aplenty, at a price...
Camels are worth a lot more than donkeys and indeed horses so a man's wealth can genuinely be calculated by the number of camels he has!
Junior here wanted to demonstrate that he can milk a cow..... But as it was a heifer I don't think he would get a lot out of it.
And in aisle 3, we have these... And I don't think these are donkeys... I think they are either mules or hinnies.
In the absence of any form of pens except a low row of rocks to keep the animals off the carpets nearly everything is 'hobbled' which looks a bit cruel but they don't use rope and it does solve the problem of the animals wandering off!
Goats and sheep are in aisle 1...
Titch on the right has just been sold along with one of his siblings for a total of 3200 EGP about £80 each, which I thought was quite expensive... The 'boy' tells me this is a sheep but it isn't, it's a goat...
And some very cute goats here as well, quite ornamental in fact. Oh dear admiring goats means I have lived on Crete for too long....
Get a camera out in Egypt and you are never short of a subject, this one on the right should go far, he seemed to think his picture was worth 10EGP, but all he got for his trouble was a clip around the ear from his father for pestering the tourist.
And some people, below, do not look too thrilled by the idea of market day...
And finally the ''tea tent''.. An important place for meeting friends and chewing the fat over a cup of tea and a shisha...
One doesn't like to be nosey, but then when you are out for a walk how can you help noticing things....?? I was going to try and put on a map of where I go often for a walk but unfortunately by the time I have zoomed in on it it is too big to fit an a blog!
Suffice to say it is very dusty most of the way around,
And before I forget... This should have been in the blog about Luxor City... This is the El Karnak International Hospital.
I don't know why the International because it is for everybody. As you can see it is new!
The two photos above probably say it all, the one on the left is typical in the fields, I have yet to see a tractor.... The load on the donkey and cart is the tops from the sugar cane which they use for animal feed, the one on the right is in the city and they still use donkeys even there, but behind it is one of the minibuses they use in the cities and in the country.
Meanwhile in amongst the fields they are building yet another mosque, as if they haven't got enough already...
This road is a road not just a dusty track, you really would not want to be disabled around here and a wheelchair user... The canal on the left is an irrigation canal but at the moment they have a problem further up the road as the culvert that carries the water from the main channel has become blocked with rubbish and general black Nile mud!
By the way all these dusty tracks have LED street lighting which they have been using for years in Egypt... Who said they were backward?
Like Greeks they do like building stuff in the middle of nowhere... This is destined to be a hotel in a few years time, yes another hotel...
The palm tree on the right amused me rather, never waste a good palm tree is the motto I suppose.
Years of ploughing has resulted in the soil compacting down, and in dry weather blowing away as dust and left this tree high and dry!
Below right n the banana fields they cover the developing fruit with blue plastic bags to protect them from the cold.
Walking around these back streets you get to speak to a lot of people, many of them invite you into their homes and show no embarrassment that the floor is compacted earth, but somehow spotlessly clean. Years of damping the floor and walking on it compacts the dirt down, indeed they even sweep it.
And of course you get the children and sometimes the adults who ask you for money, and for many this seems strange or unusual, but many Egyptians will refer to it as ''a present'', at this point it is worth remembering the Five Pillars of Islam, one of which is 'Charity'.....
Give an Egyptian an apple and you will often see him cut it in half and share it with somebody else.....
The video is just a part of my daily walk, I took it because of the level of the Nile at the moment which is the highest I have ever seen it. Where the donkey is is usually dry land but at present it is flooded. I asked around and apparently the level depends on the rainfall in the mountains where the Nile rises and when Lake Nasser reaches maximum capacity then the flood gates ae opened, but the level also depends on agricultural demands for the rice fields downstream in the Nile delta around Alexandria. Bet you didn't know they grow rice in Egypt!
Meanwhile the weather is still misbehaving and it is very cold at night.... So along the riverbank there are burning braziers to keep tourists and local alike, warm.
And somewhere I have lost the plot on the transport side of things!!
The Luxor area is literally littered with archaeological sites which is hardly surprising when you consider it is the location of Thebes, the glorious capital of Upper Egypt during the time of the New Kingdom. The city of Amun, later deified as Amun-Ra...
Most visitors to the area are on a time limit unfortunately so they only get to see The Valley Of The Kings and The Colossi of Memnon which you cannot miss because they are on the side of the road!!
To visit all of these sites in depth would take years and I met a Spanish Egyptologist who has been studying the sites for years and she says she still hasn't finished!
So at the risk of boring you dear reader I visited one of the other temples in the area, Habu Temple, the mortuary temple of Rameses III.
Rameses III was known for his battles against the ''Sea Peoples'' unfortunately the day of my visit that part of the complex was off limits for some reason so I cannot bore you with the huge carved wall depicting the defeat of said Peoples....
Much excavation work has been carried out on the site, since 1926 mostly by the University of Chicago Oriental Department who are still busy at work on the site to this day, the middle of the site once contained a Byzantine Christian church which was demolished to allow excavation of the ancient site below. Needless to say nobody thought to do any drawing or photographs of it beforehand. We can blame the French for that I believe... From here on I will leave you with the pictures although there are a couple of comments further down!
The Temple is built on a slight slope which makes it a bit more interesting than some.
As you can see it is not too crowded...
Lots of statues of Rameses III pretending to be Osiris....
Like a lot of them he thought he was a God...
Note the colours which have remained for 1000s of years which is more than you can say for some of the modern paints.
A lot of the carving is excellent and unusually deep.
If you think the picture below looks familiar look at the picture of the railway station in a previous blog..
At some stage the builders have been in (left), and put in a new piece of wall which has obscured the carvings on the original wall......
Some of the excellent carvings are on the outside of the buildings, hopefully you can see the detail on the picture below..
