Darren checks out Egypt's history from the air!
This month we're celebrating our 10th birthday at Escape Worldwide,
and looking back at 10 years of globetrotting in the name of bringing you great
holidays - at least that's our excuse! We're having a look at our personal top
10 favourite travel experiences of the last 10 years.
"I'm a huge fan of Egypt's historical sites -
I think it dates back to my school days when tales of Pharaoh's and their
treasures buried in the desert really captured my imagination! The thing to my
mind that's so wonderful about Egypt's history is how accessible it is, and how
easy it is to picture the scene thousands of years old - so many temples and
other sites are so well preserved, it has to be the best place in the
world for any history buff!
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| Balloon over Luxor at sunrise |
Luxor probably has the highest concentration of antiquities of any part of Egypt, and the West Bank is probably my favourite area. If I was to pick a single temple it would be a hard call between the clean lines and stunning setting of the Temple of Hapshetsut, located on the West Bank; and the grandeur and sheer scale Karnak Temple, over on the East Bank closer to the town of Luxor itself. But for a whole area full of historical interest, the West Bank wins hands down.
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| Temple of Hapshetsut |
The West Bank at Luxor covers a large area that is home to some of Egypt's most
important sites - the ancient Pharaohs thought that this mountainous
setting on the edge of the desert would protect them from tomb robbers, which
partly worked, so today there's a huge amount of interest here from the Valley
of the Kings (where many of Egypt's most important Pharaohs were buried)
and the Valley of the Queens, to the Temple of Hapshetsut and the Colossi
of Memnon, who were originally guarding the entrance to a long-gone temple on
an even grander scale.
I decided to do a hot air balloon ride over the West Bank, to see the whole area from a different angle. As balloon rides go (I've done one other, over the Masai Mara in Kenya) this one wasn't about the distance travelled as we pretty much only went up and down again, but the view was just spectacular. We probably covered a few miles over the area, launching in time to see the sun rise over the Nile, and in the hour or so we were in the air we'd seen all the main sites. Most of the tombs look more like a quarry from the sky as their unimposing entrances hide the tomb itself, but the most famous tomb of all, that of King Tutankhamen, was pointed out to us. We came down a little over the Colossi of Memnon, and the views over the magnificent Temple of Hapshetsut were just spectacular.
I decided to do a hot air balloon ride over the West Bank, to see the whole area from a different angle. As balloon rides go (I've done one other, over the Masai Mara in Kenya) this one wasn't about the distance travelled as we pretty much only went up and down again, but the view was just spectacular. We probably covered a few miles over the area, launching in time to see the sun rise over the Nile, and in the hour or so we were in the air we'd seen all the main sites. Most of the tombs look more like a quarry from the sky as their unimposing entrances hide the tomb itself, but the most famous tomb of all, that of King Tutankhamen, was pointed out to us. We came down a little over the Colossi of Memnon, and the views over the magnificent Temple of Hapshetsut were just spectacular.
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| Amazing Balloon Trip over the West Bank |
There's something really special about a hot air balloon ride, where all the noise of ground level is taken away and the silence is only interrupted by the occasional blast on the burner. Seeing the antiquities of Egypt from the air is something that will stay with me forever."
Next time....No 8 - Borneo Orang Utans
Escape Worldwide - Home of Long Haul Holidays
http://www.escapeworldwide.co.uk
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