Cairo

A truly fabulous first day out and about, all well-covered to protect us from the truly blazing sunshine.  A big thank you from me to Tarek for aquiring me a ticket for the Great Pyramid - that vast vaulted interior was staggering, and the dry heat of the interior was as memorable as the structure itself.  As well as inspecting the pyramids, the boat pits and the sphinx we visited the tombs of Senjem Ib Inti, Minister of All Royal Public Works and the tomb of the mother of the Pharaoh Khufu, Queen Hetep Heres. Unfortunately I haven’t got any photos, but the trip to Gizeh was made extra special by the visit to the tomb of Queen Meres Ankh III (I’ll try to dig out a link to some pictures elsewhere on the Internet) and to the Pyramid workers’ village, where two curse inscriptions were translated for us by one of the site archaeologists (I do wish that I had written down the translation at the time!) and the tiny stone false portals of workers’ tombs were particularly moving. 

The afternoon in the Cairo Museum was superb.  We returned to the Mena House for our final night before moving on to the Faiyum.

Click on the image to see the full sized picture

Mena House Oberoi

Mena House garden in the morning

Flowers in the garden of the Mena House

Tickets for the Pyramids at Gizeh

The Great Pyramid

Gizeh

Gizeh

Tomb of Seneb Ib Inti, Gizeh

The Sphinx with the Great Pyramid

The Sphinx

Looking into the face of the Sphinx

Sphinx:  Close Up

Sphinx - wig

Pyramid view from the Workers' Village

The Pyramid Workers Village

Curse, Pyramid Workers's Villlage