The Temple of the Queen Hatshepsut

This Temple is one of ancient Egypt's finest monuments with its unique design.

Luxor Temple

Largely built by the New Kingdod pharaohs AmenhotepIII and Ramses II.

Luxor City

Luxor is often called the world's greatest open-air museum.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Nabq Protectorate

Thirty-five kilometres north of Sharm 
el-Sheikh is Nabq, the largest coastal protectorate on the Gulf of    
Aqaba. Nabq covers approximately 600 sq km of land and sea between the straits of Tiran and Dahab. Because it is less frequently visited than Ras Mohammed, Nabq is a good place to see Sinai as it was before the arrival of mass tourism.
Nabq's main attraction is its mangrove forest, which runs along the shore line at the mouth of Wadi Kid and is the most northerly mangrove stand in the world.

Mangrove root systems filter most of the salt from sea water and help to stabilize shore lines, while also providing an important habitat for birds and fish. Gazelles, rock hyraxes and Nubian ibexes can be seen in the protectorate, as well as two villages of Bedouin from the Mizena tribe.    

Ras Mohammed national park



Ras Mohammed National Park is considered the jewel in the crown of the red sea. This name was given to the park by local fishermen for a cliff that resembles a man's profile. The park occupies a total of 480 sq km of land and sea, including the desert in and around the Ras (headland), Tiran Island, and the shore line between Sharm el-Sheikh harbour and Nabq protectorate. The park is visited by more than 50,000 visitors annually, enticed by the prospect of marveling at some of the world's most spectacular coral reef ecosystems, including a profusion of coral species and teeming marine life. Most, if not all, of the red sea's 1000 species of fish can be seen in the park's waters, including sought-after pelagics, such as hammer-heads, manta rays and whale sharks.

The Blue Hole



The blue hole is Egypt's most infamous dive site. It is caved into a reef just offshore from Dahab. The Blue Hole is a gaping sinkhole that drops straight down- some say to as deep as 130m. The trap is an archway at approximately 65m, which connects the sinkhole to the open ocean. If you leave the depths to the experienced technical divers, you will find the outer lip of the Blue Hole is full of marine life, and a reasonable plunge into the hole itself is somewhat akin to skydiving.
The entry point is at the Bells, a narrow breach in the reef table that forms a pool close to shore. From here, you descend through a chimney, exiting at 27m on a ledge that opens to the sea. If you swim south along the wall, a saddle in the reef at 7m allows you to enter the Blue Hole. As long as you monitor your depth carefully, you can finish up the dive by swimming across the sinkhole towards shore. 

Tiran Island



Tiran Island is located north east of Sharm el-Sheikh in the Gulf of Aqaba. It has some of the world's most amazing underwater scenery. The crystal clear water, rare and lovely reefs and an incredible variety of exotic fish darting in and out of colorful coral have made this a snorkeling and scuba-diving paradise. 

Thursday, August 1, 2013

The Colossi of Memnon

The two Colossi of Memnon on Luxor's west bank are the only remaining standing statues fronting the
mortuary temple of Amenhotep III, it was once the largest temple built in Egypt and believed to have covered an area larger than Karnak, and show the pharaoh sitting on his throne. Each one cut from a single block of stone and weighing 1000 tonnes.        

Medinat Habu ( Habu City)

Ramses III's magnificent memorial temple of Medinat Habu is perhape one the most underrated sites on the west bank.
The site was one of the first places in Thebes to be closely associated with the local god Amun. Although the complex is most famous for the funerary temple built by Ramses III, Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III also constructed buildings here. It measures 320 m in length (East to west) and about 200 m in width (North to south). You can still see the mudbrick remains of the medieval town that gave the site its name (medina means "town" or "city") on top of the enclosure walls.

The Temple of the Queen Hatshepsut

This Temple is one of ancient Egypt's finest monuments with its unique design. It was designed by Senenmut,
a courtier at Hatshepsut's court and also thought to have been her lover. It is the only temple in Egypt built in terrace formation into the cliff face.  The best-preserved relief are on the middle terrace. The reliefs in the north colonnade record Hatshepsut's divine birth and at the end of it is the chapel of Anubis, with well-preserved colorful reliefs of a disfigured Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III (her successor) in the presence of Anubis( the jackal), Ra-Horakhty and Hathor( the cow). The wonder fully detailed reliefs in the Punt Colonnade to the left of the entrance tell the story of the expedition to the land of Punt( now Somalia) to collect myrrh trees needed for the incense used in temple ceremonies.