I was keen to go to Egypt because I had not been there and I felt I should go. There were may places I felt I should see. I had seen plenty of photographs of the pyramids and the sphinx, but so what?
Arriving at my hotel in Giza, I was surprised to see the Great Pyramid less than a kilometre from the outer suburbs of “The Great Cairo”. I had expected to see an enormous desert around them – there is, but the pyramids are on the edge of it. Egypt is actually 94% desert. Without the Nile River there would be no Egypt, because there would be no water there.
The surprising thing about the Pyramids of Cheops and Chefren (Cheop’s son) is their size. Cheops is 233m square and was originally 148m high. It has been estimated that the materials that went into the structure of the Great Pyramid was about 9 million tons of granite, sandstone and sand. This structure was built in 23 years more than 4,500 years ago. The ancient Egyptians obviously had great mathematical, engineering and organisational skills, but when the Pyramid of Cheops was built they did not have the wheel.
I was overwhelmed just thinking about how they did it. If it was not for the absolute size of the pyramids the Great Sphinx would appear much more significant. When you look at the sphinx without the pyramid context, it is a very large and impressive structure. Then, seeing it with the Chefren Pyramid in the background it looks almost insignificant.
Giza, with the Great Sphinx and the largest pyramids, tempts one to ignore the other attractions of Lower Egypt, but there are many other significant attractions in the area. The Bibliothica at Alexandria was one place I wanted to see – and I was not disappointed. Built in 2003, it is a little more than 100 metres from the site of the original Alexandria Library. For anyone interested in books, the Alexandria library is a must. Alexandria had other many attractions. The Graeco-Roman Museum, the Roman Theatre, the National Museum, Pompey’s Pillar and the Catacombs of Alexandria are all historical sites worth visiting. My regret in Alexandria is that the two hours I spent in the Bibliothica was simply not enough. I think, from my perspective, it needed a full day.
Other lower Egypt attractions include Memphis, the old capital, Saqqara with the Step Pyramids and the Mortuary of Djoser, and even the old areas of Cairo with the old Coptic Church and Museum as well as Jewish area with its history of the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt.
People sometimes call me a history buff. Everywhere I looked in Egypt there was something for me.