Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The Temples on the East Bank

Some bloggers do posts called Wordless Wednesdays. Well, this post is Almost Wordless Wednesday. Sorry, I had trouble narrowing down the pictures. :)


On Sunday night, we hired a babysitter through the hotel and ate dinner at the other Sofitel in town, the Sofitel Winter Palace. Look at this beautiful garden:





After dinner, we went to the Sound and Light show at the Karnak Temple. It was really cheesy and you couldn't see much. You have to walk around in the dark while they talk, and just when you think it's finally over, you go sit in some uncomfortable bleachers and listen to 20 more minutes of silly narration while looking at a not so spectacular scene. But, Dame Judi Dench was the narrator. I love her. :)Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful during the day, but the night show is silly. I'll spare you my terrible photos, except this one:





The next morning, we explored the two temples on the east bank, driven by our favorite cab driver, Ahmed. First is the Luxor Temple. I'll spare you a history lesson, but you can click the link if you want more info.


The Avenue of the Sphinxes used to go all the way from Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple:





Remnants of the Christian church that at one time was built on top of this temple.





The avenue of the sphinxes leading up to the Karnak Temple.



I wish I had a photo that would show you how amazing this part of the temple is. It's a forest of columns. I would estimate that there are about 100 columns in this room.
An obelisk: it was built by the only female pharaoh, Hatsheput.

The sacred pool where the pharaoh was cleansed and rejuvenated before going into the presence of Amen-Re:

Well, that just about does it for the things we saw and did in Egypt. I just have a couple other cute pictures that I took of the babies in Luxor that I'll share tomorrow. :)

3 comments:

Zaankali said...

Amazing!

Anonymous said...

I cannot wait for tomorrow!!!! I'm thinking that of all the wonders of the world, my grandbabies are the best!

I am so glad that you were able to experience Egypt. It is very amazing, isn't it? Just to think that all of that was done without modern tools! And to realize that God's people must have had a hand in making some of that, or at least something like that when they were enslaved there.

Thanks for sharing!

Love, Grandma Cindy

Anonymous said...

very cool pics!! this is fantastic! i hope to read all of your stuff eventually.

theresa