Day 11: September 7 - Goodbye to the Antares, Flight to Cairo and NEMC

 We had an early breakfast because we had another early flight. This would be our last time on the ship that had become our home away from home. We would leave from the Luxor airport to head back to Cairo. At breakfast we got to see the balloons of Luxor one last time.

I had gotten my cartouche necklace from the ship jeweler and he did a marvelous job, so I wanted to say goodbye.

He did some fabulous necklaces, but I could only afford a small pendant and some earrings, but the jeweler was very kind to me none-the-less.

Our staff said goodbye to us as we left. It is hard to imagine seeing a new group of people every other week and still being cheerful and welcoming, but they were extremely so.

We got one last view of the ship as we headed toward the bus that would take us to the airport.

There were some lovely flowers along the road near the bus.  I noticed these orange ones and some beautiful yellow ones.

I tried to capture some typical street scenes as we left. I often shoot the unusual things, but I wanted also to remember what the typical streets looked like.

There were large quantities of people waiting for something not far from the airport.

Goodbye to the mountains of Luxor.

Goodbye to the dry river beds of the no longer flooding Nile.

And hello again to Cairo.

This was an interesting feature in the Cairo airport. There seems to have been some kind of random covid scanning of arrivals at the Cairo airport. The last one to get scanned was spousal unit D.

The program assessed that he was not wearing a mask and had a beard. It analyzed his facial expression (and gender) and measured his temperature. 

Unfortunately the elevator wasn't functioning, so we had to lug our suitcases around and up ramps and over to the bus pick up zone.

We deposited our suitcases at the bus cargo area and climbed on board.

And a bus took us back into Cairo traffic.

It was off to a hotel in a completely different part of Cairo, the Intercontinental Hotel Citystars. (Actually in Cairo this time, as we were in Giza for our first stay.) It is the second largest hotel in Cairo (probably because of the Mall and because it is so close to the airport.)

We were in an area with a huge shopping mall. Unfortunately I was SO tired that I never made it to the mall. They had a fantastic restaurant with numerous stations for different kinds of foods. Below is the lobby with sphinxes around a central circular area with an obelisk in the middle.

It was a huge hotel and had a very large dining area.

We found seats and then headed off to the food tables.

There was SO much to choose from. This was the area for desserts (always my favorite!)

There were salads and pickles and cheeses and just about everything you could possibly want.

Remember I am only showing you one side of any of these food stations, so there is even more food than you can see here. There were other stations too. The meat station was down at the other end of the room, for example, and I didn't show you the soups either!

Here is what I ended up with on the first pass.

The color of this aspic dessert was a little more than I could handle!  The bakery slices behind it, though were as beautiful as anything you would see in a Parisian bakery.

Here was my dessert pass!

Here was the view out our window! I did not get a chance to go to the pool unfortunately, but it was nice to know I could have!

Our last excursion was either the Coptic Quarter of Cairo or the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.  Since they had moved the royal mummies from the Egyptian Museum to the NEMC, there was no question but that we would learn some more about ancient and this time also modern Egyptian civilization.

This museum was smaller but covered all of Egyptian culture and history.

It displayed carefully chosen objects to represent different periods in time.

Ancient Egypt was favored. Here is a statue of Akhenaton in the so-called Amarna style.

Our guide Hany helped us understand what we were looking at.

There were a couple of black granite statues of ancient gods Horus and Khnum.

Here they are from the other side.

There were some lovely pieces like this graceful pharaoh/king.

Some of the exhibits were more contemporary, like this Bedouin jewelry.

Here is the traditional clothing that goes with it.

There were many Islamic artifacts of great beauty.

Here is a long shot of the hall. It was roomy (and felt quite different from the spatially crammed Egyptian Museum. It is easier to look at the artifacts in this space, but there is something about the stuffed, antiquarian quality of the Egyptian Museum that is very comforting and it makes the pieces seem older and more valuable - like you might find a special treasure as you shuffle through the rows of stuff. Aladdin's lamp could be just around the corner!)

What follows is a series of random shots (much like the order in which one sees the objects as they do not really tie together the way the period rooms in the Egyptian Museum do.)

This is beautifully carved black granite sarcophagus.

This is a magnificent carving of an Egyptian chariot.

Figures to help the dead in the afterlife

This is a well-preserved stela with a sennet board in front.

Personally I would rather play the game sitting in this throne instead of on that stool above.

Implements of power for the king are seen below.

...and here is another lovely carving.

These figures are particularly interesting, because they show workers making bread.

This fetching statue has a magnificent smile.

A more modern display focussed on Mohammed Ali Pasha for example.

There was a separate exhibit on clothing that was very interesting (but I was growing weary by the time I got to it.)

It covered ancient to contemporary Egypt and was on two different floors.

This is a modern piece that caught my eye.

Here is a picture of the ground floor part of the exhibit. (You can see the upstairs part along the back wall.)

We were not allowed to photograph the mummies, but here is a description sign about them.

There was a huge celebration and parade to transport the mummies from the Egyptian Museum (Youtube video here.)

BBC has a lovely write up about the parade too.

The mummies were transferred in individual vehicles with nitrogen to protect them each labelled with their name and preceded by women bearing baskets, Egyptian chariots and priest-like throngs in royal capes.

It must have been spectacular!

News sites and publicity have plenty of pictures of the mummies. This is from Egyptforward.

This is what the new digs look like.

There are many, many pictures of Ramses II's mummy. This one from CBS is actually Seti I! He is in better condition for not having been knocked around everywhere. When the mummies were brought up to Cairo long ago, they had to go through a kind of customs, but the Customs officials weren't sure how to tax them. They ended up classifying them under the category of dried fish.

The NEMC also has a garden terrace with a carefully landscaped area which can (sometimes?) be reached by a series of ramps and stairs.

It was locked off the day we were there.

I was tired and it looked like an absolutely divine place to sit and rest. Too bad. I will have to remember that for my next trip.

The gift shop had lovely (and expensive) items that seemed of high quality. Unfortunately I was completely shopped out, so it was a relief when we boarded the bus and went back to the hotel. Here are a few random photos from that trip.

Here is the Cairo skyline.

We passed the famous cemetery again.

And look what we could see way off in the background!

Here is a typical shot of modern Cairo.

This is also typical.

Back at the hotel we rested until it was time to head for dinner.

The lobby had this fantastic bakery case.

And then it was back to the buffet for dinner!

I wish we had had some kind of official and organized goodbye function. This was our last chance to see everybody together and it was a situation where we only saw those we sat with to say goodbye

I was truly so tired that I did not do the proper farewells that I wish I had taken part in.

We left the dining room early and went directly to bed, because we had to be up by 4:00 AM. Our Egypt trip was now over, but we were not done. Our extension trip to Jordan would be beginning very very early the next day.