This is our last day in Gran Sasso. It snowed again last night for a short time - but didn't stay. The people at the hotel have been very nice. Italians like to talk to people, even if we don't have a language in common. They provide vocabulary words - so now I know much more Italian than when I started.
One of my readers commented on the fact that much of my blog deals with food. That is a reality of Whitten life. This time though, I might be in trouble - so much to eat - so little exercise. I may have to stop eating altogether when I get home.
And on that note, here are all the pictures of food that I took in Italy:
And back to Egypt. We had another early morning. We had to be on the bus at 6 to go to the airport.
When we arrived in Cairo, Passant once again showed her worth. It was too early to check into the hotel. Part of the group wanted to go to a shop that sold cotton things and part wanted to go to the hotel and have lunch there. She figured out that the bus driver could drop the cotton shop group, take the others to the hotel, pick up falafel sandwiches for the shoppers and come back to the shop. We finished shopping and then had a light lunch on the bus. Chuck wanted to get some short sleeved cotton shirts. I wanted to get a tee shirt for Alec. It turned out that they would embroider a personal cartouche on the shirt and deliver it to the hotel. After picking out Chuck's shirts, they had long sleeves. NO Problem, they would shorten the sleeves and deliver them, too.
That evening we went to our home hosted dinner. The bus driver was in big trouble. He dropped us off at the wrong place. We had to walk several blocks and cross a busy street. The guard stopped traffic for us - see they do come in handy.
Notice the gold on the furniture - but not as much as Abdul's!
The next morning we visited the pyramids. They are truly incredible. It is hard to believe that people could build these massive structures more than 4000 years ago. When you see pictures, they look quite close together. That is only because they are so large. We had to ride in the bus from one to another!
One of the guys with the rifles took this picture in return for a tip. He had a special place for me to stand which would create the illusion.
Chuck & Maggi. Larry went inside the pyramid. Since it involved walking bent over down a tunnel and then being in the burial chamber where everyone becomes aware of the tons of rock balanced overhead, the rest of us passed.
Me at a view point:
This was a boat that was buried next to one of the pyramids. It was used to take the pharaoh on his last ride. After its discovery, it took 20 years to put it together. (I kept questioning this, because the pieces were really in the proper order, it was obviously a boat - what took so long? It may have been that they had to preserve the pieces before reconstructing it.)
Chuck and I at the Sphinx
All of us at the Sphinx. From the left: Larry, Maggi, Me, Chuck (hidden), Kathleen, Linda, John, Ann, Bob, Don, Penny (peeking out), Jeannie, John, Vicky, Dave & Fran.
KFC at the pyramids. They are all over, too.
In the afternoon, there was an optional tour of Saqqara, the necropolis of the Old Kingdom. We opted not to go. It was very chilly and Maggi said that she went back and sat in the bus.
That night Larry, Maggi, Chuck and I went to the Mena House for dinner. This used to be a king's palace and was really interesting to see. Passant said that we could walk and that the guards at the gatehouse would help us cross the very very busy street. We could walk - but we were on our own for crossing. (An experience we may never forget!) The dinner was great and the restaurant was "Continental" so we all had none Middle Eastern food. We took a taxi back!
There was a wedding. I was all over trying to get a good picture of the bride:
The bride and her father were escorted down the staircase by a bagpiper and drummers.
The next morning we took the optional tour of Spiritual Cairo. Here is Passant in the front of an old church. We also visited a very old synagogue in this area.
Then we drove to a mosque in the Citadel:
The ceilings were spectacular:
Lunch time again. This pigeon was going to be someone's treat. (We didn't have pigeon - but I think that many of us would have paid a supplement to have it included!) When I took the picture the girl who was sitting underneath the cage looked at me like I was nuts - I thought that she was nuts, sitting under a bird cage.
After lunch we went to a traditional shopping bazaar. It was very crowded - but India was worse. You can see the street here.
That evening we had our farewell dinner aboard a restaurant boat on the Nile.
A lovely trip! There were no problems on the way home for us. Some of the others ran into bad weather and flight delays.
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