We kicked the day off at the Pyramids and the Sphinx just outside Cairo. This was both stunning and a bit surreal.
It was stunning because the scale of the three pyramids was incredibly impressive: the big one was made of 2,300,000 huge stones and was amazing. The Sphinx was less impressive but the whole complex was well organised.
The highlight for me, though, was the mini museum housing the reconstructed 3000-year-old boat made of cedar wood. I come from a port town with its own docks and a now-defunct shipbuilding industry so I've always had a fascination with ships and boats and how they are made and what their jobs were.
It was surreal because the whole complex is so close to Cairo and if you look one way it's the pyramids and the Sphinx and lots of desert. But if you turn round it's the backs of hotels, houses and businesses in the not-too-far distance.
We then went to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. This was a big deal for the Missus as alongside Abu Simbel it was the highlight of the tour. And it didn't disappoint. Two huge floors of antiquities from the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom, plus the loot from Tutankhamun's tomb and the rooms containing the royal mummies. We spent three hours there and could quite easily have spent double that.
On the plus side, though, it does mean we have a reason to go back. But we'll probably wait until the latest social unrest is sorted out...
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