February 1-2-3, 2019
After traveling for too many hours with a stop-over in Munich, Jeff and I arrived in Cairo Egypt Saturday night. We had two nights to adjust to a new time-zone before joining a Vantage tour group. Our reservation was waiting for us at the JW Marriott Hotel and we immediately collapsed in a large comfortable room.
Although most of Egypt is beige sand, the area around the hotel is green. Here’s a view of the golf course from the balcony:
The next day, we relaxed and explored the grounds of the hotel. There were indoor and outdoor swimming pools, play areas for families, tennis courts, several restaurants, and walking paths.
On Monday we wanted to leave the hotel complex and explore Cairo on our own. We made arrangements with the Concierge to have a taxi take us to the Egyptian Museum, wait two hours, and bring us back to the hotel. All this for only 450 Egyptian Pounds or $25.
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities is world famous for its extensive collection of ancient historical Egyptian artifacts. We knew we were scheduled to return to the museum with our tour group, but we wanted to make sure to have plenty of time to see as much of the museum as we could on our own.
The central Atrium is a huge space filled with Egyptian statues and some of the oldest items in the museum, including the Narmer Palette. The double sided engraved stone from the 1st Dynasty suggests the first union of Upper and Lower Egypt under one rule. It dates from 3200 BC.
Me with Queen Nofret – approximately 1900BC:
Around the central Atrium are long corridors filled with antiquities and many side rooms with smaller objects.
The Museum has an overwhelming number of antiquities in its collection. All of the ancient items were breathtakingly beautiful. It was difficult to imagine that the artifacts were 3000 to 5000 years old.
The rest of our tour group arrived in the late afternoon and we enjoyed a welcome dinner at the hotel. I had traveled to Arabia with many of the people and it was great fun to see everyone again.