Arrived in Cairo after a full 24 hours of travel and met our travel partners. A couple we have known for 25 years and have traveled with all over the world. Arrived at the Cairo airport about 2200 and after about an hour and a half made it through customs, got our Visas and through passport control and baggage claim we were ready to find a ride to our Hotel. https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/caisi-sheraton-cairo-hotel-and-casino/overview/.

Our original plan was to take an UBER from the airport to the hotel, but after much cajoling and negotiation with a driver, we opted for that choice. Bad Decision. This driver was reckless and endangered all of us with his high speed and dangerous driving. If you find yourself needing to get a ride from the Cairo airport to a hotel, I highly recommend an UBER.

The Sheraton is an amazing hotel, multiple restaurants, all great food and live music in the lobby every night, Highly recommend.

On our first full day we simply rested and adjusted to the 9 hour time difference and 24 hours of little sleep

Day 2:

Our key plan today was to go to then NMEC museum here in Cairo. https://nmec.gov.eg/ Being a huge history guy, this was a key item we wanted to do. It was much better than expected. Them NMEC is really an experience. The stand out for me was the underground mummy exhibits the “Royal Mummies Exhibit” https://nmec.gov.eg/mummies-gallery/. . The displays were well maintained and very informative. On the floor above the mummies was an incredible display of Egyptian antiquities, from the bones of a soldier from 35k years ago, to more modern archeticture.

The second part of the museum was all about the Egyptian textiles industry and trades, while much smaller in scale to the main area, still very interesting. https://nmec.gov.eg/textile-gallery/ Additionally, there was a nice outside lake and viewing area as well as a small shopping mall on a separate lower level.

Overall highly recommend if your happen to be here for a trip!

Day two wrapped up with a fantastic Japanese dinner at Sapporo.https://www.morecravings.com/en/menus/610

Day 3:

We visited the Step Pyrmaid, this was the first step Pyrmaid built at Sakkara and was an amazing site to see. The step pyrmiad was our first true grand pyrmiad we saw, it was breathtaking and we were able to walk right up to it! The Citadel Mosque was amazing as well, it is one of the Largest mosques in the world and was simply beautiful inside. Was a great day! The Evening wrapped up with a traditional egyptian dinner and a walk through Old Cairo and a traditional market.

The market was a great experience, we had a traditional egyption dinner then experienced all that was an egyptian market at night! Throngs of people, music and good entertainment!

Day 4:

There was a lot to do on this day, First Stop was the Grand egyptian musuem – phenonmenal. We had a tour of the highlights and then some time on our own. Not sure my words can effectively convey the sheer coolness of this place. So, I will share pictures.

Second stop, Grand Pymairds, wish we would have spent more time here and gone down into the tombs, but the day was coming to an end, either way it was a fantastic experience. The camel ride was fun and great photo op, but candidly for me we should have spent more time at the grand pyrmiads. The sphinx was amazing, you can no longer go in or really get closer than about 100 meters, but definitley worth the stop!

Day 5:

We flew from Cairo to luxor, And visited Karanak Temple, luxor temple and boarded the boat.

Karanak temple was amazing it is the largest temple complex is Egypt, and has stunning pillars that are reportedly the first columns ever erected in human history! Kind of amazing!

That Night we visited the Luxor temple, again words really cannont describe.

This is the day we got on the boat. For this trip we cruised on the Viking Ra. Like all viking ships it was nice clean and comfortable. The Ra is the oldest and the smallest ship in the Viking fleet, only carrying 48 guests, which made this cruise very intimate as we got to know our shipmates fairly well!

The first night on the boat, we had a view of the valley of the kings. It was a great preview of our next days adventure!

Over the next several days on the boat we hit multiple cities and sites to include Aswan, Edfu, Esna, Qena, and Kom Ombo. I am going to just hit the highligths of our time on the boat and our stops. The one thing I was disappointed in was the Hot Air ballon ride over the valley of the Kings was cancelled due to high winds. I was truly looking forward to that.

Our second day on the boat we visited the Valley of the kings. This is a must do if you visit Egypt, there are approximately 63 tombs here, including the most famous; King Tut’s. Not all of them are open, but many are and you can decsend into them. (Caution, many are steep, narrow, low ceilings and long). If you are willing to go down, it is a fantastic trip into history! Do it!. We only had time for 3 but you can get tickets for all the tombs that are open and you can spend and entire day there. Tut’s mummy below on the right

On day 9 we had an opportunity to take a felucca sail. Interesting boat, we toured down the nile with a stop at a botanical garden, (in Egypt) and had a light snack and tea at the famous Cataract hotel. https://sofitel.accor.com/en/hotels/1666.html?merchantid=seo-maps-EG-1666&sourceid=aw-cen&utm_source=google+Maps&utm_medium=seo+maps&utm_campaign=seo+maps&utm_term=Sofitel-Launch

Famously where Agatha Christie stayed while she wrote Death on the Nile. Neat place.

While we had many more sites and locations we visited, Like Kom Ombo and Edfu I have only included some of the highlights. I may do a second post with more location details, but our time in Egypt was amazing and learning about the culture and history was the best part. If you have the opportunity, I would absolutely recommend the trip!

After leaving Egypt our next leg was a flight to Jordan for a 4 day trip visting the highlights! I will cover that in my next post!

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to ask questions and comments, if you would like to see more pics go here: https://www.instagram.com/jackacopeland/