Showing posts with label Cairo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cairo. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Travel Spree


Life, as they say takes you places. And recently, it has been taking me places where I never expected to be and that too geographically! In the past few months, I’ve set foot in four different continents, six different countries and a hell lot of cities. The experience, well minus the work – fabulous! From the oriental Asia, Uncle Sam’s territory to exotic Egypt it has been quite an experience and a big number on my miles and more card. I’ve seen lakes and deserts alike where they span endlessly seeming to meet only the horizon. I’ve spent days on the shores of lakes big enough to drown cities and oases with Nile as the only source of water. I’ve stayed more in Hotels and service apartments in last year than time spent at home. I’ve spent enough hours on flights, airports and cars and subway trains than all the hours of flying earlier put together. Questions asked to me have morphed from “When are going?” to “When are you (Finally) coming back?” and to even the dramatic ones “Are you coming back at all?” Across the towns the staff at half of the Subways’ and pizza hut know me and at star bucks instead of asking, “What will you have today”, they say “The usual?” Over the time, I’ve become platinum member for Marriott, Gold member for Hertz. Well, I’m still working on my Lufthansa miles, though. This is what I think I almost always wanted - To see the world and live the good life.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Cairo Landscaping


Not that I blog that often but whenever I do I try to put in a pic or Two. And with the recent discovery of mine of the fact that I can embed slide shows from the Picasa Web in my blog, I decided to be more exploratory and presentable with slideshows in my blog and not just pics. And I’ve always been a shutter bug of sorts.

So when I blogged about The Necropolis and not about anywhere where else in Egypt, people pointed it out. Of course, there’s more to Egypt than the pyramids but unfortunately for those expecting more and me obviously, I spent all my time being a pendulum between my work place and my hotel. So I am putting all the other pics (presentable if any) on this blog and album and hope those visiting Egypt through my blog like them.

Most of the pics are taken from my hotel room. I was staying at the Semi-Ramis Intercontinental Hotel which looms over the Nile River. Lucky for me, my room was Nile Facing on the 17th Level which made the view breathtaking. Some of the pics are from the drive from Cairo to Giza. Again quite a few are of my hotel which has been taken from the street, a couple of them at the Museum of Natural History at Cairo and a number of them are from the streets of the Old Cairo.

Cheers!

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Glances at Necropolis


The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now Cairo, Egypt in Africa, and is the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is believed to have been built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu (hellenized as Χεωψ, Cheops) and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. The tallest structure in the world for over 3,800 years, it is sometimes called Khufu's Pyramid or the Pyramid of Khufu.

This Ancient Egyptian necropolis consists of the Pyramid of Khufu (known as the Great Pyramid and the Pyramid of Cheops), the somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre (or Chephren) a few hundred metres to the south-west, and the relatively modest-size Pyramid of Menkaure (or Mykerinus) a few hundred metres further south-west, along with a number of smaller satellite edifices, known as "queens" pyramids, causeways and valley pyramids. The Great Sphinx lies on the east side of the complex, facing east. Current consensus among Egyptologists is that the head of the Great Sphinx is that of Khafre. Associated with these royal monuments are the tombs of high officials and much later burials and monuments (from the New Kingdom onwards), signifying the reverence to those buried in the necropolis.