One of the largest and most advanced ancient civilizations lived in Egypt for millennia, building temples, palaces and monuments that are still visible to us after 5000 years. You can book a flight on Egypt airlines online as well.
Crossed by the Nile River for 1500 kilometers, most of Egypt’s attractions are found along this legendary fertile river (which is also the longest in the world), where life has been flowing for millennia, well before Cleopatra or Ramesses arrived.
The pyramids of Giza, the temples of Karnak and Luxor, the Valley of the Kings and Queens, the desert, Mount Sinai, but also Alexandria, Cairo. Lots of things to see during a trip to Egypt.
How to move to Egypt
By plane: Egypt Air (the Egyptian national airline) connects most of the tourist resorts, but also Air Sinai, which is useful for reaching various Egyptian locations.
By bus: buses cover the entire Egyptian road network, arrive in all cities of the country and there are all types and all price ranges. Some buses are brand new and truly offer every comfort (food, water and coffee included). In our opinion, the bus is the best and cheapest way to get around the country.
By train: the Egyptian railway network is well developed and, as for buses, there are trains of all categories that have nothing to envy to Italian trains. The only “flaw” is that there are completely different prices for Egyptians and tourists: a ticket bought by a tourist costs about 7-8 times more!
5 Reasons Why You Should Plan an Egypt Trip in 2021
Have you planned your holidays in Egypt but you still don’t know where to start? Perhaps our 5 reasons why you should visit this country will give you the right inspiration to start this amazing journey.
1. Pyramids of Giza
Whenever you mention Egypt, the first thing you think about is certainly them, the three great pyramids of Cheops, Chefren and Menkaure, which rise behind the outskirts of Cairo. They are the only ones left of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and have continued to fascinate tourists from all over the world for more than 4000 years.
Today we know that they are gigantic tombs built at the behest of the pharaohs, but how they managed to build them remains a mystery to this day. The same is true of the enigmatic sphinx
which is located a few steps from the pyramids, on whose function archaeologists from all over the world still struggle.
Some legends speak of the existence of hidden passages inside and of a hypothetical “room of registers”, that is a library that would contain all the knowledge of the ancient Egyptians fixed on papyrus rolls, but at the moment there is no scientific evidence about it.
2. Egyptian Museum of Cairo
Whether you are a lover of archeology, or not in a particular way, you cannot miss the visit of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo which houses the most complete collection of archaeological finds from Ancient Egypt in the world.
Here you can see the famous treasure of the pharaoh Tutankhamun, found in his tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1923 by the archaeologist Carter, including the three sarcophagi (one in solid gold!) And the magnificent funerary mask (also in gold).
The exhibition of mummies is also really impressive, containing 27 royal mummies from ancient times, including those of the famous Seti I and Ramsete II, of which only the face is visible.
3. Luxor and Karnak
The city of Luxor is located where ancient Thebes, the capital of Egypt, once stood, and here is the largest concentration of monuments in the whole country: the temple of Luxor, the Great Temple of Amun in Karnak and, nearby, the archaeological sites of the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens.
The Luxor Temple is located on the east bank of the Nile and is an elegant example of Pharaonic architecture enriched with bas-reliefs of rare beauty. Karnak is located on the other side of the river and is perhaps the largest monumental complex ever built.
In addition to the colossal temple of Amun, the archaeological site extends for over 100 hectares and includes a myriad of buildings that testify to the importance of the ancient city of Thebes. You could only spend a whole week here!
4. The Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens
The Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens are located near Luxor and represent the enormous royal necropolis of ancient Thebes. The Valley of the Kings is located in a canyon created by ancient rivers and contains over 60 tombs of pharaohs, including those of the famous Tutankhamun, Ramses II, Seti I and Ramses III.
The tombs are decorated with beautiful representations of the afterlife and were filled with immense treasures that, unfortunately, were looted centuries ago (except those of Thuyu and Yuya, and the very famous tomb of Tutankhamun). The royal consorts and the princes of the ruling houses are instead found in an area not far from there, called the Valley of the Queens.
5. Abu Simbel
The Abu Simbel archaeological complex was built by Ramses II on the ancient southern border of the kingdom, far from Aswan, to intimidate the Nubian neighbors and to commemorate the victory over the Hittites in the Battle of Qadesh.
The site includes two magnificent rock temples of enormous dimensions that represent an engineering masterpiece and confirm the great knowledge of astronomy of the ancient Egyptians. In fact, inside the largest temple, twice a year the first ray of the sun illuminated the face of the statue of the pharaoh.
The two days in which the phenomenon occurred were February 21 (when in ancient times the cultivation season was celebrated) and October 21 (which celebrated the flood season). Both dates also reflected the date of Ramses II’s birth and coronation.
The temples of Abu Simbel would have been submerged with the construction of the great Aswan damin 1960, but thanks to a massive joint operation of the Egyptian government and UNESCO they were moved, block by block, 65 meters higher and 200 further back from their original position and are, fortunately, still visible to us. But their astronomical peculiarity survives, only with the displacement of one day!
