Alabaster Shop and the Habu Temple

One of Egypt's main tourist items is alabaster. We stopped at this large shop to check it out.

These men were demonstrating the time-consuming process of carving alabaster vases, starting with a marble block.

The shop's interior. Heba gave each of us a scarab from this shop as a remembrance of the trip.

We visited this college, where the three majors were on hotel management, tourism and archaeology.



The temple of the day was Medinet Habu, the mortuary temple of Rameses III, on the west bank of the Nile across from Luxor.  This is the fortified entrance gate.



Inside the gate, we approached the large pylon leading to the inner courtyard.

Statues of Rameses III (and small wives) in the courtyard.

The bases of the columns were all that remained in this hall. Long after the temple was abandoned, the tops of the colums (which were the only parts visible above the sand at that time) were cut off for use in other construction.

Heba is pointing out the wall carvings, which depict the victory of the forces of Rameses III over the "Sea Peoples".

The paintings are still bright and clear after centuries.

Luxor



The entrance to Luxor Temple, not far from Karnak. 



Inside the first courtyard.

Looking down toward the back of the temple complex. That's our tour group in the foreground.

Another interior view.

Before Luxor was excavated, a mosque had been built using one of the temple walls. The original entrance was where the tiled area is now, at ground level. The congregation had to be convinced that the entrance should be moved to the other side of the mosque to allow further excavation of the ruins.

In the early Christian era, the temple was converted to a church. These frescoes, on one of the interior walls, are of Jesus' disciples.

Looking back toward the entrance.

Karnak Temple

Karnak Temple was part of the ancient city of Thebes, which was the capital of the unified ancient Egypt beginning around 1300 BC (18th Dynasty). It’s the largest ancient religious site in the world – many sections are closed to the public. Approximately thirty pharaohs contributed to the buildings over many centuries, and include the worship of many different deities in the timeline of Egypt’s ancient history, up to the Christian era.

This avenue of hundreds of sphinxes connected the temples of Karnak and Luxor, and was only discovered recently during excavation for building construction in the present city.  Much of the mile-long avenue is still buried.

One end of the sphinx avenue ends at the entrance to Karnak Temple.

One of the friendly-looking animals protecting a Pharaoh or God.

A wider view of the main entrance.

A few columns inside this enormous site.

One of the courtyards.

A large temple at the far end of the complex.

Hatshepsut had this obelisk constructed, now the tallest surviving ancient obelisk. It can be seen on the right in the photo above this one.

The Hypostyle Hall is famous -134 massive columns arranged in 16 rows, covered with carvings.

These hieroglyphs painted on the underside of the stones over the columns are still colorful after thousands of years.

Alexandria to Cairo to Luxor

The elegant Victorian Alexandria train station.

Inside the station. The cars are old and worn, and the ride was rough and bumpy - impossible to knit or read.

Women arriving from the country to sell produce and items at the market.

Houses along the way - with the inevitable laundry.

The train took us through the irrigated terrain, with lots of small produce plots, and housing in the background.

The end of this trip - the Cairo train station.

And the start of the next trip - Cairo airport. Next stop: Luxor.

From the aircraft window - the Nile, with irrigated land on either side, and an abrupt shift to desert.

The elegant Luxor airport.

And our modern Luxor hotel - this is one of the lobbies.

The walkway to the dining room where we had a huge buffet breakfast.

The view from our hotel room window.

More Alexandria

A small part of Alexandria's harbor on the Mediterranean





The harbor's medieval fort, built on the site of the original lighthouse, which was one of the seven Ancient Wonders of the World.

On the other side of the entrance to the harbor is the "new' lighthouse.



The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, quickly snapped as we were driven by

A large and lovely mosque. The minaret of this building can be seen in the first photo above.