Egypt
Egypt is all about the world-famous pyramids, the mighty Nile that brings fertility in the midst of the desert, and the chaotic city of Cairo with its millions of inhabitants. Here you are constantly reminded that you are a long way from home, as the Mezzins give the call to prayer from the slender minarets on the mosques, and the scent of bubbling hookahs wafts in between the energetic sales arguments of the street traders. The exhaust fumes from Midan el-Tahir’s junction mix with the scent of cinnamon, lentil soup and kufta meatballs, and postcards with motifs of the city’s proud neighbour, the Keops pyramid, are on sale everywhere.
Cairo
A long weekend is not long enough to see Egypt, the world’s oldest tourist destination. Many thousands of years of cultural history are spread across the 1 million km2 of the country, and Cairo, with its population of 20 million and the many world-famous tourist sights, has a bewitching effect. It will take you days and days to explore: the sight of the burial goods of Tut Ankh Amon’s grave at the Museum of Egypt is enough to impress most people. In the high-powered Khan el-Khalili bazaar, you can strike good bargains and not such good bargains, and afterwards you can come down a gear again in the reverent silence of the Muhammed Ali mosque’s gleaming white courtyard. The three big pyramids and the sphynx at Giza are absolute musts for anyone travelling to Egypt, and if you manage to pluck up the courage and overcome the claustrophobia, you will be able to tell rapturous tales of the interior of the Keops pyramid and the long way through dark corridors to the burial chamber from which Pharaoh’s soul was supposed to ascend to the heavens and unite with the sun god. But there is no reason to restrict your Egyptian tour to Cairo. The Nile runs right through the city, and the big Nile ships are ideal as floating hotels when you want to experience the rest of Egypt.
Egypt’s other tourist sights
Situated mid-way between the barren sands of the Sahara desert and the green fields of the Nile valley, North Africa’s big country is well worth experiencing. In addition to Cairo, there is the recently reopened model Library of Alexandria, which aims to bring the city back to its leading position in science and research, just like in ancient times when it competed with the Greeks’ cultural centre in Athens. Egypt is well worth visiting for the demure Aswan area, where the big, new Aswan dam and power station help to cover a large part of Egypt’s energy requirements. For the Abu Simbel rock temple, built by Ramses II around 1250 B.C. For the Kom Ombo temple – “City of Gold” – which was built to honour Horus the falcon god and Sobek the dark crocodile god. And for Luxor, with the valley of the kings and queens, and the pharaohs’ richly embellished temples of the dead.
Others will no doubt be tempted by a seaside holiday in Sharm el-Sheik or snorkelling in the Red Sea, or by the barren, harsh stony landscapes of the Sinai Peninsula, where the St Catherine’s Monastery nestles in one of the many dry river beds like a time capsule chiselled in granite at the foot of the mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. The old Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt “the gift of the Nile”, and today’s tourists can follow in the footsteps of travellers of old, marvelling as they go on a journey of discovery.