Holidays in Egypt
In the fifth century BC Herodotus wrote that nowhere are there so many marvellous things as in Egypt, nor in the world besides are to be seen so many things of unspeakable greatness - and not too much has changed. Since long before the birth of Christ, travellers have been drawn to this extraordinary country and its pyramids, Sphinx, ancient Luxor and River Nile.
Its not just the Pharaonic monuments either - its the legacy of the Greeks and Romans, the churches and monasteries of the early Christians, and the overwhelming profusion of art and architecture accumulated from centuries of successive Islamic dynasties.
Modern Egypt is an amalgam of these legacies and more, juxtaposed with the often incongruous influences of the 20th and 21st centuries. Mud-brick villages stand beside millennia-old ruins surrounded by buildings of steel and glass.
Bedouins live in goatskin tents and farmers till the earth with the simple tools of their ancestors. Some townsfolk dress in long flowing robes, others in Levis and Reeboks, and city traffic competes with donkey-drawn carts and wandering goats.
Nowhere are these contrasts played out so colourfully as in Cairo, a massive city thronged with people and ringing to the sound of car horns, ghetto-blasters and muezzins summoning the faithful to prayer.
Egypt isn't all chaos and clatter, however. Its also a divers dream dip, a trek across the sands on a camel or a long lazy punt down the Nile.
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| Cairo |
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| The heart of Egypt for more than 1000 years, Cairo demonstrates the dichotomy of all things Egyptian. It’s in Cairo where the medieval world and the contemporary western world come together in a confusion of earthern houses and towering modern office buildings, of flashy cars and donkey-drawn carts. Nobody really knows how many people live in Cairo, but estimates put it at about 16 million, and the city’s many squatter camps and slums alone accommodate around 5 million people. Housing shortages are terrible and the traffic is appalling, but the government has begun a campaign to ease these pressures, opening an underground metro system and constructing satellite suburbs. |
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| Luxor |
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| Built on the site of the ancient city of Thebes, Luxor is one of Egypt’s prime tourist destinations. People have been visiting the magnificent monuments of Luxor, Karnak, Hatshepsut and Ramses III for thousands of years. Feluccas and old barges shuffle along the Nile between the luxury hotel ships of the Hilton and Sheraton cruising to and from Cairo and Aswan. |
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| Alexandria |
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| The mighty Macedonian, Alexander the Great came to Egypt in 331 BC after conquering Greece and selected a small fishing village on the Mediterranean coast to establish his new capital, Alexandria. The city is oriented around Midan Ramla and Midan Saad Zaghoul, the large square that runs down to the waterfront. Alexandria once had a great library that contained more than 500,000 volumes, and at its peak the city was a great repository of science, philosophy and intellectual thought and learning. |
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| Port Said |
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| Situated on the northern entrance to the Suez Canal on the Mediterranean coast, Port Said is a very young city by Egyptian standards. It was founded in 1859 by ruler Said Pasha when excavations began for the Suez Canal. Port Said was bombed in 1956 during the Suez Crisis, and again in the 1967 and 1973 wars with Israel; the damage can still be seen here and there, although the city was extensively rebuilt. The original settlement was established on land reclaimed from Lake Manzela, and the city sits on an isthmus connected by causeways to the mainland. Ferries cross Lake Manzela to Al-Matariyya and across the canal to Port Fouad. Unlike many of Egypt’s other Mediterranean towns, Port Said does not get overrun with local tourists seeking sun and sea. It’s an unusual destination by Egyptian standards, with 1900s colonial architecture and several good museums and gardens. |
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| Aswan |
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| Aswan, Egypt’s southernmost city, has long been the country’s gateway to Africa. The prosperous market city straddles the crossroads of the ancient caravan routes, at the other end of the Nile not far above the Tropic of Cancer. In ancient times it was a garrison town known as Swenet (meaning Trade), and it was also important to the early Coptic Christians. The main town and temple area of Swenet were located on Elephantine Island in the middle of Nile (the island was known then as Yebu, and later renamed by the Greeks). The temples and ruins here are not nearly as well preserved and impressive as those elsewhere in the country, but there are other good reasons to visit. If you’re not tombed out, a visit to the Tombs of the Nobles is worthwhile, and a highlight is the Nubian Museum, showcasing history, art and Nubian culture from the prehistoric to the present. The Nile is glorious here as it makes its way down from massive High Dam and Lake Nasser. . |
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