As spring rolls on, my traveling mind is wandering; just where will we go now, or at least in the near future, with Covid-19 precautions slowly fading into a very bad memory?
Many of you fellow readers in Our Town and far beyond, know my bride, Lady Deborah, and I love to visit world locations we have never previously experienced. In full disclosure, however, there are also a few places we would certainly like to re-visit because they had a particular "magic" type of grip on us when we were there. One of those special places was the area in and around Cairo, Egypt, a country geographically located on the northeastern portion of the African continent. Since Ms. Debbie and I were only there for a 2-day land excursion off a Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) docked in Alexandria, Egypt, we would certainly like to return to this historical location. We would enjoy spending a week cruising the upper Nile River, aboard an up-scale ship, coupled with a couple of days in a nice Cairo hotel. During part of this proposed re-visit, we would be back in Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, a vast burial location of many ancient pharaohs and queens. The greatest re-visit sights, however, are the human-built structures that almost take one's breath away when they are first seen, and render a visiting person almost totally speechless.
The Giza Pyramid complex, including the Great Sphinx; these incredible sites are only a short driving distance (8 miles southwest) from the massive (metro area, 21.3 million) Egyptian capital, Cairo. These iconic ancient structures are very difficult to describe in words. Let me attempt to tell you our experience a few years ago, hopefully tempting you to pay a visit to this never-to-be-forgotten place, far, far away.
It seemed like our NCL tour bus barely left the confines of Cairo, and we were in the next town, Giza. There on the flat desert plains not far off the highway, were the incredible Giza Pyramids and Giant Sphinx. They are like huge limestone monoliths, rising out of the totally barren land, reaching great heights (454-feet) in the sky. Any visiting observer's immediate thought is "How could these unbelievable structures have ever been built by human beings?" These pyramids are the only surviving and oldest (possibly taking 27 years to construct around 2,600 BC) remaining member of the original list of "7 Wonders of the Ancient World". This list was thought to be compiled in the 2nd century BC. The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest man-made structure in the world for 3,800 years!
Yes, stated again, seeing these massive structures on the vast, totally flat desert landscape are absolutely incredible to the human eye and brain!
My bride and I had to do the "required' on-sight tourist activity; carefully ride a pair of camels, with our backdrop of the pyramids, for several photo opportunities.
The other adjacent sight that drew us to walk around it was the Giant Sphinx. This monument's dimensions are 240-feet long, paw to tail, 66-feet tall, and 62-feet wide. The Sphinx posses the head of a man (supposedly Pharaoh Kafhre), and the body of a lion. The Giza Pyramids and Giant Sphinx are close enough it is possible to photograph all of them within the same picture frame, for an absolutely stunning personal souvenir of your visit.
Well, in relating this experience to you, I feel I have re-visited these iconic sites for a second time in my mind's eye. Realizing that, I now feel visit #3 is on our future schedule?
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