Europe and Beyond

  Wednesday 29th May After arriving in Luxor around 6:30am we went to our hotel to drop our bags and use the bathrooms to freshen up. Then it was off to The Valley Of The Kings. Around 1000BC the Egyptians noticed that several pyramids had been robbed, so the King decided to dig his mausoleum into the cliffs in a valley near Luxor. The idea being that they could hide the entrances and or make false entries into the tombs. Our ticket included entrance to 3 tombs and on our guides recommendation we also bought a ticket for the Ramses VI tomb. We decided against going into Tutankhamen's tomb, which - though it had his Mummy - had little wall art  The tombs that are available to visit do change occasionally, but we saw Ramses IV, Ramses IX and Ramses III before going into Ramses VI. Each tomb was amazing, with the carvings incredibly detailed and the colours still vibrant.  Whilst the first three tombs went in a straight line into the hillside, the last (Ramses VI) had a few turns -

 The first day of our tour took us to the Giza Plateau to view the Great Pyramid and it's next door neighbour the Pyramid of Khafre. As we arrived our guide warned us that cameras with 'lenses' were not allowed and would be held at security.  Trace was not impressed and it was unclear if he meant SLR cameras with detachable lenses or any 'second' lens you may have.  In the end it didn't matter because some rules seem to be there just for the sake of it.  We got off the bus, leaving our bags behind and went through security, including a metal detector.  After clearing security we got back on the bus, which had driven forward through it's own gate and were reunited with our bags and cameras.  Who knows what the point of all that was.  Speaking of security, we had a member of the Tourist Police on board all day, ostensibly to help speed our passage through different checkpoints, but he was carrying what looked like a sub-machine gun. At our first stop we had 45

 We flew out of Melbourne at 9:15pm Friday 24th May with an initial 14 hour flight to Dubai.  As usual I didn't sleep very well or very long on the plane but after a 3 hour lay over and another 3 hour flight we arrived in Cairo. Upon check-in at the Holiday Inn we found we had been upgraded to a Nile River view room (from a city view) and can also see the pyramids from our balcony.  Though a little hazy it was awesome seeing them for the first time. A quick unpack and then we went to the National Egyptian Museum of Civilization.  Although we go there with our tour in a few days time, apparently they only take you to the Hall of Mummies.  We were keen to see what else was there, but in particular Tutankhamun's mask.  Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photos of the mask, but it was as spectacular as we hoped.  We spent a little over 2 hours there and saw many  sarcophagii and many other masks and trinkets.  Strangely we couldn't find the Hall of mummies, so it wil