Egypt. Where else can you get 4,500 years of history just a five hour flight from the UK?
I first travelled to this fascinating country in 1991. Aged 21, it was the start of my year-long travels around the world. I peaked at the first hurdle in terms of amazing sights and didn’t really appreciate what I saw. So 31 years later, I felt it was time to return.
My trip started in Cairo. Yes its traffic clogged, polluted and overcrowded with nearly 23 million inhabitants, but it is still one of the world’s most fascinating destinations where the past smashes up against the present. Just walking around Old Cairo and along Al Muizz Street, I got to see the greatest density of significant Islamic monuments anywhere in the world.
The best place to start your immersion into ancient Egypt is at the Egyptian Museum, which is surely the greatest store-house of Egyptian antiquities. Exploring the museum with my private guide, Hala, definitely brought everything to life and she paved the way for the rest of my history lesson during my 10 day trip following the Nile to Upper Egypt.
The museum is full of life like statues, their eyes inlaid with quartz. There are mummies, albeit most of these are now in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation and, of course, the mask and sarcophagus of the most famous pharaoh of them all, King Tutankhamun. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take photographs of King Tut’s artefacts, but they were amazing to see with my own eyes.
All of King Tut’s 5,000 plus treasures are being moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum, which has just opened in Giza overlooking the pyramids, and it will be the first time all of his bits and pieces will be on show together. I am certainly planning a return visit to Cairo to see the new Grand Egyptian Museum.
But of course, the main reason you go to Cairo is to see the pyramids. I started with the prototype based out in Saqqara, which is stepped and the earliest colossal stone building in Egypt, dating back to the 27th Century BC, which is pretty mind blowing.
Then there’s the pyramid at Dahshur where the angle was changed during construction. Despite this, it has still managed to remain standing for over 4,500 years.
But the stars of the pyramid world are of course the three at Giza. Just a mere 30 minutes’ drive from central Cairo and peering over the nearby town just by Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken, you get to see one of the sole survivors of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World, The Great Pyramid.
The pyramids were royal tombs built for three different pharaohs. The Great Pyramid on the right, also known as the pyramid of Khufu, the pyramid of Khafre in the middle and the pyramid of Menkaure on the left. Thinking about their existence puts your mind into overdrive. Built over 4,300 years ago, it took over 2.4 million blocks of limestone, 23 years and 100,000 workers to build just the Great Pyramid. All three pyramids would originally have been covered in a smooth limestone casing as can be seen on the top of the middle pyramid.
Lying in front of the pyramids, the Sphinx is much smaller than you ever imagine, but is still a mysterious wonder.
Next I flew down to Luxor, which is positively sleepy compared to Cairo and is basically one big open air museum. I started at the temple of Karnak, where the earliest part of the temple complex dates back 4,600 years making it the oldest temple in Egypt. It was built in dedication to the principle Egyptian god Amun Ra and expanded by a succession of pharaohs for over 2,000 years, with each pharaoh trying to outdo the previous one. The result is an incredible maze of temples, statues, sphinxes, columns and even a sacred lake. The whole thing is absolutely awe inspiring including the dizzying Great Hypostyle Hall with its 134 massive columns.
At sunset I visited Luxor Temple, which was once connected to Karnak Temple by an avenue of Sphinxes that stretched nearly 2 miles.
At the Valley of the Queens, I had a private viewing of Queen Nefertari’s tomb. She was the beloved wife of Ramses II - number 19 of 34, but his favourite and only Queen. The tomb is overwhelmingly beautiful and the colours of the paintings so vibrant, even after 3,000 plus years. Your time is limited to 10 minutes and I did have to wake up early to nab a private viewing, but it was so worth it and probably one of my favourite sights during my whole trip.
This was followed by the Valley of the Kings, which is where the pharaohs started placing their tombs when they got fed up of the pyramids being looted. Here there are thought to be over 100 tombs, but only 64 have been discovered so far. The most famous tomb of course if King Tut’s, albeit everything other than his withered mummified body has been moved to the Egyptian Museum, but it is amazing to imagine Howard Carter stumbling across the tomb and finding all the treasures in such a small place. It is believed this tomb remained intact because robbers only saw the above tombs of Ramses V and VI and looted those instead.
There was even time for a quick visit to Queen Hatshepsut’s Mortuary.
The final part of my trip was Aswan. Often this section of the Nile between Luxor and Aswan is covered on a Nile cruise and there are all manner of boats to sail on, from humongous river cruisers to smaller 20 birth boats to traditional Dahabiyas. I personally wanted to spend time around the pool at my chosen hotels and also be able to walk around and experience the towns, so I went overland and in 4½ hours I was checking into the iconic Old Cataract hotel.
I visited the hotel back in 1991 as a backpacker to watch the sunset over the Nile and the Aga Khan’s mausoleum. This time I was checking in and following in the footsteps of many illustrious guests from Lady Diana to Sir Winston Churchill and Agatha Christie, who wrote Death on the Nile at the hotel.
Inside the design respects the original beauty of the Victorian building, whilst combining Middle Eastern touches with Moorish arches and Egyptian colours.
You can either stay in the original Old Palace Wing or, where I stayed, in the Nile Wing. You may forgo the atmosphere of the old quarters, but the view from your terrace more than makes up for it.
Then as day turns to night, nothing quite prepares you for being on the terrace of the hotel, G&T in hand, at that sublime moment when the light spreads its soft magic.
One morning I visited Philae Temple by boat. In 1971, fearing that it would be totally submerged by flooding from the newly built Aswan High Dam, the whole complex was moved stone by stone to higher ground on nearby Agilkia Island where it stands today.
Whilst another day I took a very short flight down to Abu Simbel in the south of Egypt close to the Sudanese border. Here stand two temples built by Ramses II - one for himself and one for his favourite wife and Queen, Nefertari. Each temple was carved directly into the mountain. Outside the Great Temple, there are 4 imposing statues of Ramses II himself, each standing 20m high. Inside there are hieroglyphics depicting Ramses’s military campaigns.
The Great Temple was built with such precision that on only 2 days of the year, the sun’s rays travel the length of the temple illuminating the sculptures of Ramses and the gods of Amun and Ra. There is also a fourth statue, that of Ptah, a god connected with darkness, but the rays do not illuminate him.
One of the most impressive things about the temples is that in the early 60s, they were cut into around 1,040 blocks and moved 200m away onto higher ground to stop them being submerged by the rising Nile after the creation of the Aswan Dam.
I saw so many impressive sights during my time in Egypt and sometimes it was definitely hard to take it all in. But the great thing about doing a trip like this on your own with a private guide, as opposed to in a group, is that it means they adapt everything around you and your interests, so you don’t get “temple-it is” or bogged down in history. You get to see and learn about as much or as little as you want.
If Egypt is on your bucket list and you are interested in discovering its treasures, please do get in touch. I work with a great team on the ground and I can build a totally bespoke trip around you and what you want to experience in this awe inspiring country, whether there’s just two of you or a family.