Cairo, Egypt - Mosque of Mohammad Ali, Egyptian Museum, Flight to Aswan
(text by Chris J., Kim G. and Chris M.)
We were back with our guide, Modi, from our first tour in Cairo. The first stop was to the Alabaster Mosque or the Mosque of Mohammad Ali. I must admit, I thought Mohammad Ali was a religious figure but he was actually a lieutenant in a contingent from Albania who took advantage of turbulent times to become governor. He is credited with bringing Egypt into the industrial age. He built this mosque which can be seen throughout Cairo. The funny story here is he traded a obelisk to France for a clock tower, which sits on the outer wall of the Mosque. The clock is ugly and was broken in transit so it has never worked. In my mind this was the worst trade ever! Not surprisingly, across from the Alabaster Mosque was a large alabaster mine.
Next stop was in Old Cairo. We visited the the Hanging Church from the 9th century built on top of the Water Gate of the Roman Fort Babylon. The floor is made of tree trunks meant to "float" the church if flood waters got too high. According to our guide, the wooden ceiling was also designed to look like Noah's Ark, but was basically just a curved wooden ceiling. We also visited a Synagogue, the oldest in Egypt dating back to the 9th century. It was built on the shell of a 4th century Christian church. We also visited the Church of St. George, built on the northern tower of the Roman wall.
Our next stop was the Egyptian museum. The museum has an amazingly large collection of ancient artifacts, the largest in Egypt! Our guide took us on a hurried two hour tour and then left us for an hour to explore on our own. An interesting note was that they had to cut up and then re-assemble two large statues of Ramses II and Nefertari to get them through the doors. I thought at first, "what a ridiculous thing to do to two priceless, ancient artifacts!", but on closer inspection, it appeared they needed a lot of restoration anyway and were better protected from further damage by being placed within the museum.
The showcase exhibit in the museum were of the artifacts found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun, the only tomb discovered completely intact. Especially impressive was his gold laden burial box, within a box, within a box, along with his sarcophagus, within a sarcophagus, within a final sarcophagus. The last sarcophagus was made completely of gold. They are tremendous pieces of work! It took 10 years to completely excavate his tomb.
We paid the extra 100 pounds ($20) to see the two rooms containing mummies of kings and other high ranking officials. Some of the bodies of the ancient kings and queens were still in remarkable shape, while some of them were quite gruesome.
Kim wanted a cartouche with her name on it, so Modi took us to a nice jewelry shop where she a had a silver cartouche made with gold inlays. We were in a hurry and a bit anxious, so we our guide took us to see the cartouche being made in the "factory". It was your basic Egyptian sweat shop, but the skills of the workers were quite impressive.
We returned to the hotel to take a bus to the airport for a late night flight to Aswan. Our Memphis rep seemed in a rush when we got to the airport. He was further frustrated by the fact that the usual entrance to the airport terminal had been changed to accommodate pilgrimage flights to Mecca, so we had to take a longer route to our departure terminal. In the end it was a nice flight on Egypt Air to Aswan. The hotel was on par with our place in Cairo.
We had the most annoying Memphis rep who met us and kept pestering us about "additional" tours as soon as we arrived in Aswan. We were a bit tired and cranky at this point, so we were not the most receptive audience. We arrived at our hotel in Aswan around midnight.
(text by Chris J., Kim G. and Chris M.)
We were back with our guide, Modi, from our first tour in Cairo. The first stop was to the Alabaster Mosque or the Mosque of Mohammad Ali. I must admit, I thought Mohammad Ali was a religious figure but he was actually a lieutenant in a contingent from Albania who took advantage of turbulent times to become governor. He is credited with bringing Egypt into the industrial age. He built this mosque which can be seen throughout Cairo. The funny story here is he traded a obelisk to France for a clock tower, which sits on the outer wall of the Mosque. The clock is ugly and was broken in transit so it has never worked. In my mind this was the worst trade ever! Not surprisingly, across from the Alabaster Mosque was a large alabaster mine.
Next stop was in Old Cairo. We visited the the Hanging Church from the 9th century built on top of the Water Gate of the Roman Fort Babylon. The floor is made of tree trunks meant to "float" the church if flood waters got too high. According to our guide, the wooden ceiling was also designed to look like Noah's Ark, but was basically just a curved wooden ceiling. We also visited a Synagogue, the oldest in Egypt dating back to the 9th century. It was built on the shell of a 4th century Christian church. We also visited the Church of St. George, built on the northern tower of the Roman wall.
Our next stop was the Egyptian museum. The museum has an amazingly large collection of ancient artifacts, the largest in Egypt! Our guide took us on a hurried two hour tour and then left us for an hour to explore on our own. An interesting note was that they had to cut up and then re-assemble two large statues of Ramses II and Nefertari to get them through the doors. I thought at first, "what a ridiculous thing to do to two priceless, ancient artifacts!", but on closer inspection, it appeared they needed a lot of restoration anyway and were better protected from further damage by being placed within the museum.
The showcase exhibit in the museum were of the artifacts found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun, the only tomb discovered completely intact. Especially impressive was his gold laden burial box, within a box, within a box, along with his sarcophagus, within a sarcophagus, within a final sarcophagus. The last sarcophagus was made completely of gold. They are tremendous pieces of work! It took 10 years to completely excavate his tomb.
We paid the extra 100 pounds ($20) to see the two rooms containing mummies of kings and other high ranking officials. Some of the bodies of the ancient kings and queens were still in remarkable shape, while some of them were quite gruesome.
Kim wanted a cartouche with her name on it, so Modi took us to a nice jewelry shop where she a had a silver cartouche made with gold inlays. We were in a hurry and a bit anxious, so we our guide took us to see the cartouche being made in the "factory". It was your basic Egyptian sweat shop, but the skills of the workers were quite impressive.
We returned to the hotel to take a bus to the airport for a late night flight to Aswan. Our Memphis rep seemed in a rush when we got to the airport. He was further frustrated by the fact that the usual entrance to the airport terminal had been changed to accommodate pilgrimage flights to Mecca, so we had to take a longer route to our departure terminal. In the end it was a nice flight on Egypt Air to Aswan. The hotel was on par with our place in Cairo.
We had the most annoying Memphis rep who met us and kept pestering us about "additional" tours as soon as we arrived in Aswan. We were a bit tired and cranky at this point, so we were not the most receptive audience. We arrived at our hotel in Aswan around midnight.
posted by Chris at 11:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home