Cairo
In
March 2004 we made a tow week journey to Egypt. After a very bad start, because our tickets at
the airport in Vienna were lost, we had to buy our tickets for a second time. We arrived in Cairo at 9 pm. In Cairo we decided
the things we want to see with the guide, because we were only 6 persons in our group. Our hotel was the Intercontinental Pyramids park ***** with a view to the pyramids.
At the morning on the second day our first stop were at the pyramids from Gize (very amazing). After this we drove to the pyramids of Sakkara and to the former capital: Memphis. We drove to the city of Cairo with the hotel-shuttle in the evening and went to the Nile. We also saw
for first time, the crazy traffic of the 18 millions
metropolises. To the Egyptian Museum we drove on the next day. There we could see th
e mummy’s of
few pharaohs and the sarkophag of Tutenchamun. We visited
the Mohammed Ali Mosqu
e, one
of the biggest in Egypt, and the Coptic Quarter at the third day in Cairo.
Nile Cruise
We went by plain from Cairo to Aswan. In Aswan the travel guide said
us, that the travel to Abu Simbel isn’t possible for us, because our Nile ship
starts at 2 pm. In Aswan we saw the Dam, the unfinished obelisk, the temple of Philae and at the end we made a felukken drive to our ship – the Nile admiral****.
First station of our Nile cruise was the Kom Ombo temple. It was great because of the evening sun. To the Horus temple in Edfu we went at 6 am at the next morning, which is one of the biggest in Egypt. After this we waited nearly the whole day at the Lock of Esna, because of so many ships.
At the next morning we came to Luxor, where we started at 6 am to the valley of the kings. At the valley we could see 3 chambers, 
and they were impressing.
A Parfumery, a must see for Egypt, we saw aft
er this. The memnon statues and the hatschepsut temple were our next stations. To the Luxor- and Karnak temple we drove after that, which both are situated in Luxor.
In the afternoon we made a horse cruise to the native people from Luxor.
Hurghada
With a bus convoy we drove at the next morning from Luxor through the desert to Hurghada. Our Hote
l was the le meridian makadi beach**** with
an extraordinary pool and plant. The second week we used for recovery. We also made the cruise with a mini submarine at hurghada (not good) and drove to the Bazare of Hurghada with the hotelbus, where we bought a few souvenirs.
The way back home, was with a stopover in Cairo to Vienna with Egypt-Air.
Finally it was despite of larger problems a beautiful and interesting vacation. We got our money back for the payment of the tickets from our travel agency behaviourless. Our complaint with the tour operator airportlastminute concerning the not possible Abu Simbel trip (although confirmed by telephone) was answered unfortunately only with awkward excuses, so that we will avoid this tour operator in the future.
