Early this morning we boarded a flight to Aswan (called Syene in ancient times). Aswan has long been a trade center and a gateway to the south, with today’s city being an intriguing blend of African and Oriental influences.
After arriving in Aswan, we took another short flight to Abu Simbel, site of the magnificent temple of Ramses II. There are in fact two temples, namely the great Temple of Ra-Harakhte, fronted by the four colossal statues of Ramses II (each over 600 feet high) and the Temple of Hathor, dedicated to Ramses’ beautiful wife Queen Nefertari. Impressive in themselves, these temples are further remarkable in that they were cut into pieces, raised up on the hillside from their old location and then reassembled around a concrete dome on the current site, when threatened by floodwaters from Lake Nassar and the High Dam project.
After our visit to Abu Simbel, we took a short light back to Aswan and boarded our 5-star deluxe Nile cruise boat, the Sun Boat IV. All I can say about this boat is, WOW! Our room was spectacular, and the staff on the boat was superb. At night we would go to sleep with the stars shining along the shores of the Nile, and in the am we would awaken to the sun shining on the water as the boat drifted along the waters.
The first afternoon we visited the Aswan high dam. At a length of 1500 feet long, it is the world’s largest rock-filled dam. From there we proceeded to the granite quarries, which supplied the ancient Egyptians with most of the hard stone used in pyramids and temples. Here we saw the enormous “Unfinished Obelisk” which weighs 1500 tons and is an example of the technique used by the ancient Egyptians in producing these enormous monoliths.
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