Today we set out for the first pyramids built. The first one was the step pyramid at Saqqara. King Djoser built a temple complex described as his residence for eternal life. Imhotep was the architect for this and other incredible projects. Saqqara is a massive site that is still being actively excavated. The complex was originally surrounded by a large granite wall. The entry way was lined with columns and led to a massive court yard. The site was initially a graveyard filled with Mastabas (little brick rooms or caverns with flat roofs). Important people picked up the pyramid trend within Saqqara and continued for centuries.

We also saw two pyramids that followed upon the trend a little ways away, but within sight of the Step Pyramid. There were two pyramids at the Dahshur site built by king Sneferu. The Bent Pyramid is unique because it has a rhomboid shape. There was an active dig happening inside. Intrepid Dale climbed up to see what was happening. He was able to see down the tunnel into the tomb. They don’t know why the shape was chosen, but our guide was clear, the shape was always the plan. The Red Pyramid was the prototype for later pyramids like the ones at Giza.

Our next stop was a nearby tomb of Kagemni. This temple was disovered in 1843. It revealed a number of intricately carved figures depicting daily life activities. Our guide spent considerable time explaining the images. We then had the option of going into King Teti’s tomb. This required going down into spaces too small for Dale.

We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. Our pita were made by a woman working in front of a wood-fired oven. We were greeted by a band that played drums, a recorder and had a dancing boy. The music and dancing were not great but we rewarded their efforts with a tip.the food was fantastic and the meat portion was served on a coal-fired hibachi. The hummus and baba ganoush were wonderful with the fresh pita.

The wind picked up as our day went on and was felt the reality of the environment. Windy in the desert means you keep your mouth closed to avoid eating sand. The day was delightful and we made it back in time for a rest, a lecture about the Nile river and supper. Tomorrow we are off to Aswan. I may not have internet access, but I will post again when I can. We have an early morning call to catch our flight. We leave the hotel at 3:30 (gasp!) in the morning.

We survived our travel day yesterday and got to the hotel around 7 pm local time (9 hours later than Edmonton time), had supper and went to bed. We got up bright and early for breakfast and tour briefing. I took a moment to look outside my room window in daylight and the pyramids were right there in front of me.

There are 24 people on the tour, 5 Canadians and 19 Americans. We were all in different stages of jet lag so things got off to a late start. By 10 am we were on our way to the Giza Plateau.

The great pyramid is huge. To give a perspective, Dale is 2 metres tall and he is standing at the base of this pyramid. the large pyramid is 480 ft tall. The second one is 450 ft but built on higher ground so looks larger. We noticed the third one was much smaller and not much was said about it. We wandered around the pyramids and were allowed to climb up a few blocks to get a sense of the build. It was impressive.

There were “hawker-Ozzi” (people who sell souvenirs at the stops we made) and it”s challenging because they are persistent. We learned that saying “no thank you” sternly wasn’t a winning solution. Avoiding eye contact seems to work.

Our second stop was an opportunity to go for a scenic view of the Giza plateau and a camel ride. The gang went for a brief ride while I focused on the camels. They are massive and fun to ride. They are also “working” police animals.

After the ride ended, we headed to the Sphinx. It was massive and has long been the protector of the Giza plateau.

The immensity of the Pyramids was mind blowing. Our guide described the various theories about how they were built but the reality is, no one really knows. He pointed out that the architects planned the buildings with precision for their purpose and to withstand threats such as earthquakes. For example, notice how there is no mortar between the rocks and how each stone is cut to fit together. This makes it sturdy, even if the ground shakes.

Our afternoon was spent at the Egyptian museum. There was so much to see. Our guide focused us on statues for our 2.5 hour tour. We appreciated this as you could wander here for days and not see everything.

Most of the Tutenkahmen artifacts have been moved to the new, huge Egyptian museum that isn’t open yet. However we saw his thrones, jewelry and his sarcophagi (240 pounds of solid gold in one sarcophagus) and his death mask. We weren’t able to take pictures of them, but we could stare in awe. The new museum is across from our hotel and it is massive. We will have to come back and spend a month just walking it’s halls.

We were hungry and tired at the end of our day but hugely satisfied with all we experienced. We are excited to see what tomorrow brings.

We checked out of our hotel, stowed our luggage and set out for a final adventure in NYC. We headed up 5th avenue to our first stop, Grand Central Station. It was big and ornate and just like you would expect from every NY-based movie you have ever seen. It has changed a lot since it first opened in 1871 when it’s location was at the outskirts of town. The current version was unveiled in 1913 and has continued to grow as the city expanded and wealth in the area increased.

Our next stop was inspired by Jane. We explored the NYC Public Library. This wasn’t a stop I would normally think to see, but Wow, was it worth it. The building was built by the donations of NY’s wealthy elite. We viewed the treasures room which housed a first edition of the King James Bible (1611), a Gutenberg bible (1455), and the original toys owned by Christopher Robin Milne (aka inspiration for Winnie the Pooh) among other riches.

We wandered by the Empire State Building at street level and were underwhelmed. None of us felt the need to pay $50USD for the view, so we “86’d” that idea and kept on walking. one of the unique views we encountered were the COVID-19 testing tents. These were all over Manhattan. This was obviously to support locals to get tested, but also targeted tourists needing to test to go home.

We worked our tired and battered feedback to the hotel in time for a leisurely trip to the airport. The 45 minute drive went in fits of race & rally driving to snail paced strategic lane changing. Our driver was skilled but it was also ok to keep my eyes focused on the tv screen in the back seat.

Dale and I abandoned our friends at JFK airport and headed to the Business class lounge. This was a treat as Dale will, hopefully, for the first time, cross the Atlantic with sufficient leg room. A bonus is that wine and dinner were included in the waiting area.

One of the things about my aging brain is an inattention to details. I am also still getting back into making the blog work so I apologize for tech differences as we go.

We started our day with a good American breakfast at the diner next to our hotel. They served us huge amounts of food which Dale, Jane and I put to good use walking to and through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While Jacquie and Brian decided the Museum of Modern Art was the way to burn calories. Everyone saw amazing sights and agreed that 2 hours in any museum is sufficient before you lose the ability to focus We regrouped at the Village Green before heading to lunch.

We started off in search of a highly recommended Shake Shack burger only to discover they had a take out only policy and it was a bit cool to sit outside. Instead we chose Antonio’s for authentic NYC pizza as our alternative. It happened to be in the same building as the theatre where the Late Show with Stephen Colbert is filmed. We felt near to celebrity just being there. The pizza was delicious and gave us the needed energy for our next activity.

We crammed all 5 of us into an Uber built for 4 people and headed to Pier 36 for our river cruise. Getting a larger vehicle is challenging. Apparently New Yorkers never go anywhere in groups larger than 4. We made it onboard in good time. We had a blustery, cool day (10C) on the deck of the boat and had an excellent view of the Manhattan sky scape. We got up close to the Statue of Liberty just as the wind picked up and the sun started setting. We finished our evening with dinner at a seafood restaurant near the pier and an Uber ride home,

Tomorrow we will repack, do a bit of sightseeing and then, off to JFK airport and our journey to Cairo continues.

It is wonderful to start contributing to this blog again. We started our journey to Egypt with a weekend in New York. My travel companions are Dale, Jane Cavanagh, Jacquie Pei, and Brian Moody. We will join a tour group hosted by Road Scholar on Monday, but more of that later.

Our first outing in NYC was to explore Central Park. The weather was brisk (-3C) but warm for us considering the -27C we left behind in Edmonton. We were surprised to see daffodils budding in the park. We eventually needed to warm up and had a great stop at the Tavern on the Green. Refreshed we headed toward Broadway.

We went to see The Book of Mormon at the Eugene O’Neal Theatre. The theatre was built in 1925 and was beautifully decorated over two floors. We were in the first row of the 2nd balcony and had a great view of the stage

The performance was delightful and we laughed ourselves silly. The play was an astute social comedy with lots of irreverence thrown in. After the play, we headed to Time Square. It was chaotic and brightly lit with advertising of all sorts. We made our way through the crowds and found our way past Radio City Music Hall and the Rockefeller Centre. We eventually found a nice Irish Pub for a beverage then found our way to a cozy Italian restaurant near our hotel for supper. Now for a good night’s sleep before more exploring tomorrow.

Hi Everyone, we are getting on the road again. Hopefully you will enjoy travelling with us as you receive updates as we travel.

Today we set out to find our conference and get oriented to our part of Rome. The Sunday session of the conference looked like it was a short walk from our apartment so we headed out on foot. That is when we learned that the instructions left a lot to be desired. It was smoking hot as we walked around the entire walled site of the private university. Who ever heard of putting a whole university behind a wall and locking it up on the weekends? When we were at the point of giving up, a woman asked us if we were looking for the conference. She escorted us to a beautiful building and we were able to register. Actually, Karen could – they didn’t have my name badge. It was a total confusion. We decided to let it all go and head back to finishing up the last pieces of our presentations. We passed this image as we left campus outside the physics building.This would be a bit of a disconcerting an image as one went into write an exam.

Our next step was to figure out how to get to the actual conference the next day. We learned that a bus that stopped just near our apartment would take us, non-stop, to the university in 20 minutes. That was a bonus. We met up with Archie and Kim for dinner and found a delightful little restaurant on Urbana street. Our landlady left us a who list of restaurant recommendations and we were happy to take her up on them. We looked out of our window as we turned in for the night. We could see the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore to one side and heard the stereotypical sounds of an Italian accordion player rising from the street below.

Our goal today was to get from our villa in Tavarnuzze to Rome. This required leaving our quiet country resort, a taxi ride into Florence and then a train ride to Rome. We had lots of time in the train station where we learned that we had paid economy fares but got upgraded to first class. Yeah us!! The train was fantastic and travelled at almost 250 km/hr. The trip was only 90 minutes and we were able to walk to our apartment in 10 minutes.

The apartment is spacious and has all the comforts of home, including our own Sphinx and a beautiful ceiling that was apparently painted a long time ago for one of the Popes. We also made good use of the washer and dryer.

Rome is a big place. Our apartment is in the middle of many good things. We walked down to the coliseum and the Forum tonight on our way to a lovely dinner. Now we are ready for an early night.

The Pitti palace was originally built by a wealthy banker named Pitti in 1458. Almost 100 years later, Medici family moved in and expansion began. The family’s official residence was The Palazzo Vecchio and the Pitti Palace was used mostly for guests and private functions. They could walk indoors from the both residences though a series of covered walkways that crossed the river on the Ponte Vecchio.

In the 1700’s Napoleon took it over as his base. It was also the home of the Italian royal family for a short time before Italy became a republic. The king donated the palace and its contents to the state in 1919.

We arrived through the Boboli Gardens behind the palace. They are acres of ornate, manicured gardens connected to the palace. We didn’t spend much time in the gardens as we wanted to get too tired before the museum tour.

As we got to the front of the building, we saw that a ceremony of sorts was happening.

The ceremony celebrated an economic pact between Italy and Germany.

We started our tour and did our obligatory climb up six long flights of stone stairs. It was worth the climb.

The walls and ceilings were covered in paintings. The rooms were richly decorated and there was a lot to see. There was also a great number of statues. This one was original to the entrance to the Boboli Gardens and has recently been restored.

The top floor of the palace was “modern art” which really meant anything from the 1800-present era.

We had lunch in town and then headed back to our villa for a swim. It’s been the great having the fun of the big city and the comfort of a small town. Our bus ride in was 30 minutes and our bus stop was just outside a grocery store.

We are now transitioning from holiday mode to conference going. We are taking the train from Florence to Rome. I am looking forward to train ride.