The Giza plateau with the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx were first on the itinerary today. It is pretty amazing to be driving through a city of 22million people and amongst the buildings see one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world! The Giza plateau is desert, like all of Cairo that is not built up, and is the home to the amazing structures.
The pyramids are awesome!
Originally standing at 147m tall (now at 137m) the Great Pyramid was built by Cheops, the middle Pyramid was built by Chefren, and the third Pyramid, standing at 66m tall, was built by Micerinus. Our favourite was the middle Pyramid because you could still see the original smooth finish to the exterior surface. We also were able to climb down inside the middle pyramid - this was very cool - although extremely stuffy as there is no ventilation - funnily enough!
The Great Sphinx is just 350m from the Great Pyramid. It is 73m long and about 5m high. The face is thought to represent King Cephren standing guard over his tomb.
We also visited the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It has a huge collection of artefacts from all the archeological sites around Egypt. The highlight of this museum was King Tutankhamon’s famous gold mask and his Sarcophagus.
Our last stop today was a Papyrus Institute, where they make Papyrus paper and hand paint
We boarded a night train tonight bound for Aswan. No beds like China but large relatively comfortable seats. Thankfully our carriage was quite empty so we were able to spread out and get as comfortable as possible for the 12-13h journey.
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