Four Seasons Resort Sharm El Sheikh

Four Seasons Resort Sharm El Sheikh
Hotel Location is the Southern tip of the Sinai peninsular,
If you are looking for a winter sun holiday in 5 star luxury Sharm El Sheikh Four Seasons Resort is the one of the best choice. All 136 guest rooms feature a private balcony or terrace - most with stunning views of the sea. Luxury suites, interconnecting doors, offer the most elegant and secluded surroundings. The breath-taking Royal Suite, as its name suggests, is truly fit for a king and has its own private garden, where guests can take breakfast each morning, and beach away from the main resort. The fabulous swimming pool makes a spectacular centrepiece to the resort, tempting even the most determined sun-worshipper from their comfortable chaise-longues several times a day. Conscientious attendants ensure that your every whim is catered for, with cold flannels and complimentary fruit juices on offer to combat the height of the midday sun.

Sharm El-Sheikh City

Sharm El-Sheikh city offers a variety of tourist attractions ranging from a dramatic mountain backdrop to stretches of golden beaches on matchless waters

The simplicity of sun, sea and sand. The

luxury of five-star hotels, water sports, shopping and entertainment. This is Sharm el-Sheikh, one of the most accessible and developed tourist resort communities on the Sinai peninsula. All around are Bedouins, colorful tents, mountains and sea. There are small, intimate hotels with modern designs, as well as larger hotel complexes belonging to International chains, plus about all the amenities one could expect of a tourist center, including casinos, discos and nightclubs, golf courses and health facilities. In fact, with diving and snorkeling, windsurfing and other water sports, horses and camel riding, desert safaris, and great nearby antiquities attractions, it is almost impossible for a visitor to ever suffer from boredom.

Luxor, Egypt Tourism

The town of Luxor, the great tourist center of Upper Egypt, Iies on the right bank of the Nile in an extensive depression bounded on the east by the rock walls of the Eastern Desert Plateau. The modern town occupies part of the area of the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes, which extended much farther north beyond the temples of Karnak, with
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its necropolis on the west bank of the Nile reaching far into the hills of the Western Desert. The present name is derived from the Arabic El-Qusur (the "Palaces": plural form of El-Qasr) referring to the mighty temple which was occupied until the end of the 19th century by the houses of the village.

The town's main traffic artery is the Shari el-Bahr el-Nil, the corniche road, with the landing-stage used by the Nile cruise ships and the cross-river ferries, which runs north and south from the temple. Between the temple and the river are the remains of a Roman forum. To the south are the Winter Palace and New Winter Palace Hotels, and in the immediate vicinity of the temple the Tourist Bazaar, shops, banks and travel agencies. To the north of the temple are other hotels and the Museum. On the eastern outskirts of the town is the station; to the northeast, outside the town, the airport.

To the north of Luxor is the great temple complex of Karnak, reached in ancient times through the streets of the city but now approached by a broad tree-lined avenue. Even in the time of the Pharaohs the Temple of Amun, the chief god of Thebes, was regarded as the finest creation of an age rich in architectural achievement. To the north, at Medu, present-day Medamut, was another group of temples.

Temple of Kom Ombo

Statue of Pharoah, Temple of Karnak

Obelisks, Temple of Karnak

Temple of Hatshepsut

Deir el Medina, west bank of the Nile at
Luxor

Temple of Luxor

Temple of Luxor

Alexandria - Fort Qaitbay

The Qaitbay Citadel in Alexandria is considered one of the most important defensive strongholds, not only in Egypt, but also along the Mediterranean Sea coast. It formulated an important part of the fortification system of Alexandria in the 15th century A.D.

The Citadel is situated at the entrance of the eastern harbour on the eastern point of the Pharos Island. It was erected on the exact site of the famous Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

About 1480 A.D, the Mameluke Sultan Al-Ashraf Qaitbay fortified the place as part of his coastal defensive edifices against the Turks, who were threatening Egypt at that time. He built the castle and placed a Mosque inside it.

The Citadel continued to function during most of the Mameluke period, the Ottoman period and the Modern period, but after the British bombardment of the city of Alexandria in 1883, it was kept out of the spotlight. It became neglected until the 20th century, when it was restored several times by the Egyptian Supreme Counsel of Antiquities.

Great pyramid and sphinx.

In a depression to the south of Khafre's pyramid at Giza near Cairo sits a huge creature with the head of a human and a lion's body. This monumental statue, the first truly colossal royal sculpture in Egypt, known as the Great Sphinx, is a national symbol of Egypt, both ancient and modern. It has stirred the imagination of poets, scholars, adventurers and tourists for centuries and has also inspired a wealth of speculation about its age, its meaning, and the secrets that it might hold.

The word "sphinx", which means 'strangler', was first given by the Greeks to a fabulous creature which had the head of a woman, the body of a lion and the wings of a bird. In Egypt, there are numerous sphinxes, usually with the head of a king wearing his headdress and the body of a lion. There are, however, sphinxes with ram heads that are associated with the god Amun.


The Great Sphinx is to the northeast of Khafre's (Chephren) Valley Temple. Where it sits was once a quarry. We believe that Khafre's workers shaped the stone into the lion and gave it their king's face over 4,500 years ago. Khafre's name was also mentioned on the Dream Stele, which sits between the paws of the great beast. However, no one is completely certain that it is in fact the face of Khafre, though indeed that is the preponderance of thought. Recently, however, it has been argued that Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid, may have also had the Great Sphinx built.

The Great Sphinx is believed to be the most immense stone sculpture in the round ever made by man. However, it must be noted that the Sphinx is not an isolated monument and that it must be examined in the context of its surroundings. Specifically, like many of Egypt's monuments, it is a complex which consists not only of the great statue itself, but also of its old temple, a New Kingdom temple and some other small structures. It is also closely related to Khafre's Valley Temple, which itself had four colossal sphinx statues each more than 26 feet long.

The material of the Sphinx is the limestone bedrock of what geologists call the Muqqatam Formation, which originated fifty million years ago from sediments deposited at the bottom of sea waters that engulfed northeast Africa during the Middle Eocene period. An embankment formed along what is now the north-northwest side of the plateau. Nummulites, which are small, disk-shaped fossils named after the Latin word for 'coin', pack the embankment. These were once the shells of now extinct planktonic organisms. There was a shoal and coral reef that grew over the southern slope of the embankment. Carbonate mud deposited in the lagoon petrified into the layers from which the ancient builders, some fifty million years later, carved out the Great Sphinx.

Egyptian Museum

History

The Egyptian Museum owes its existence to the Egyptian Antiquities Service, established by the Egyptian government in 1835 to limit the looting of Egypt's priceless artifacts.

The museum opened in 1858 with a collection assembled by Auguste Mariette, the French archaeologist retained by Isma'il Pasha. It was originally housed in an annex of the palace of Ismail Pasha in Giza, the museum moved to its present location in 1900.

The Egyptian Museum's collection includes over 120,000 items. As at the Louvre Museum in Paris, it is necessary to be selective during a visit.

One major highlight is the famous Pharaoh Tutankhamen tomb collection on the museum's upper floor. The tomb of "King Tut" (as he is better known) was found remarkably intact by Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings in 1923. Artifacts on display include the gold funerary mask and sarcophagus, four huge gilded boxes that fit inside each other, an ancient trumpet, thrones, and even a royal toilet seat.

Also upstairs is the royal Mummy Room, which houses 11 royal mummies from pharaonic times. It has a significant entrance fee and does not allow photos, but the adjacent (free) room has a nice assortment of mummified animals and birds.








Pharaoh statue outside the Egyptian Museum


King Tutankhamun Chair


The last stone on the top of a pyramid was a mini-pyramid in granite, often covered with gold or electrum (an alloy of gold and silver). In the museum you will find several pyramideons in the first large hall straight ahead when entering the museum.


Facade of a private temple at Amarna, now in the Egyptian Museum

Tutankhamen

The "treasures" of Tutankhamun have been marvelled at since their discovery by Howard Carter in 1922. It took a decade to catalogue, remove and conserve the thousands of items in the small tomb. A few of the items are displayed here and on following pages to be added as time permits. The two innermost sarcophagi are displayed in the Cairo Museum, while the outer most one still holds the mummy of Tutankhamun and resides in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

Tutankhamun's second sarcophagus. Differences in
its facial features suggest that it was probably
intended for someone else.

Tutankhamun's third, innermost sarcophagus.
Beaten from heavy gold sheet,
it weighs 110.4 kg.