Ever since French President Nicolas Sarkozy publicly frolicked on the beach with former super model (and the object of all men's affections in the early 1990s) Carla Bruni, we have been super jealous.
No, not of Carla Bruni but rather because it's "balmy weather" over in Egypt right now. During the day, temps are hitting 78 degrees.
The duo, now married, passed their time at the Sofitel Winter Palace Hotel in Luxor. And of course, they toured some of the ancient pyramids. We wonder if they toured the Mummification Museum?
Luxor depends on tourism to keep its economy afloat. And while it's been getting good tourism numbers, we read somewhere that more people actually visit the Luxor Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas than the original Luxor. Sad but can you blame them? Drinking, dancing and gambling, versus ancient dead people? Hmm....
Anyways, we would be more than happy to help out Luxor by taking a trip over there. Now does Ryanair fly there?
If you want to go to Egypt, say the people behind the new All About Egypt website, you should know something about it before you go. We've already educated you about important stuff like grabbing Pizza Hut near the pyramids or getting 18 holes in during your Egyptian getaway, but All About Egypt thinks that a variety of information about visas, nightlife, history and pharaoh chronology is important too.
While this new website also seems to have enough links and advertising to tour operators to make it feel commercial, it still has a lofty aim for prospective travelers to Egypt--they say we should:
be aware and help raise consciousness of all the efforts conducted by egyptologists, scholars and the scientific community to preserve the universal legacy of ancient egyptian culture.
Phew. And we just wanted a nice place to go snorkelling.
Can we possibly give you any more reasons to travel to Egypt? Okay, the odd attack on tourists and the necessity of traveling around in police-surrounded cavalcades could put you off a bit, but if you look past the security hassles, Egypt seems to really have everything. Including, somewhat surprisingly for a big desert, golf courses.
The Fly Golf company--specializing in golf tours of Egypt, something we would have considered a real niche market--markets itself with the touching slogan "Take off, tee off, we care." And their website visually confirms the unexpected: they really do have greens in Egypt. Five golf courses surround Cairo, more can be found near Luxor, and they're starting to spring up along the Red Sea. So when you're planning your next golfing holiday, think desert, sea and golf greens--they care.
Traveling to Egypt used to just be for the pyramids, the Sphinx, pharaohs, a felucca on the Nile and bits of old gold and papyrus. Hmm, when we look at it that way, there were already plenty of reasons to go there, but in the last few years another's been added to the list: the Red Sea for diving and snorkelling.
Our biggest disappointment was, of course, that the Red Sea's not red at all. But it is a particularly spectacular blue, so we can forgive whoever named it. The Egyptian Tourist Authority isn't even really taking things too far when it describes that the Red Sea as:
an enchanting natural beauty that charms the visitor into believing he is on a legendary tour of a paradise on earth.
With or without a scuba license, you'll spend hours staring at the sea and its colorful contents. Most tourists to the area these days buy a package and stay in a sea-side resort--but try to choose one near a town so you're not restricted only to the overly-Westernized hotel, or you might forget which country you're in. And take your underwater camera, too. Simply stick a red filter on it if you want the sea to live up to its name.
0 Comments - Add Yours
by juliana
