{"id":15077,"date":"2019-02-08T19:43:45","date_gmt":"2019-02-09T00:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=15077"},"modified":"2019-03-03T06:45:44","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T11:45:44","slug":"cairo-to-luxor-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=15077","title":{"rendered":"Cairo to Luxor, Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday – February 8, 2019<\/p>\n

Today was our tour group’s day to fly from Cairo to Luxor which is about 315 miles south of the capital city. \u00a0It’s a six hour drive or an hour flight.<\/p>\n

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This morning, Cairo had been overcast and hazy, 58 degrees. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Luxor, a fresh breeze and bright sun greeted us. \u00a0The air smelled crisp and clear. \u00a0There was green grass and trees everywhere.<\/p>\n

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There were horse-drawn carriages, fields of green, wagons pulled by donkeys, and people tending crops. \u00a0We weren’t in Cairo anymore!<\/p>\n

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We were driven from the Luxor airport to the Nile River and boarded our riverboat, The Mojito<\/em>. \u00a0I never found out the source of its name. \u00a0All the boats looked like the one in the photo above. \u00a0Four floors of cabins and public spaces with an open deck on top. \u00a0We settled in and, after dinner, watched a beautiful sunset.<\/p>\n

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Our activity for the evening was to visit the spectacular Temple of Luxor at night. \u00a0The modern town of Luxor is the site of the ancient city of Thebes.<\/p>\n

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The magnificent temple was built about 1400BC by Amenhotep III. \u00a0Two obelisks originally stood at the entrance. \u00a0The obelisk which had been on the right is currently in Paris at the Place de la Concorde. \u00a0It was given to France by Muhammad Ali Pasha in 1833.<\/p>\n

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Most of the temple had been buried under centuries of rubble as the city of Luxor grew. \u00a0A French archeologist, Gaston Maspero, began excavations in 1884.<\/p>\n

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Recent excavations began in 2004 to uncover the 1.7 mile long Avenue of Sphinxes which once connected Luxor Temple with Karnak Temple. \u00a0More than a thousand sphinx statues line the road which had been covered by mud, houses, and other buildings.<\/p>\n

Another amazing day!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday – February 8, 2019 Today was our tour group’s day to fly from Cairo to Luxor which is about 315 miles south of the capital city. \u00a0It’s a six hour drive or an hour flight. This morning, Cairo had been overcast and hazy, 58 degrees. As soon as we stepped off the plane in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egypt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15077"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15096,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077\/revisions\/15096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}