Visiting Cairo
Day five of our November 2012 trip to Egypt and we are flying from Aswan to Cairo to spend two nights in the Egyptian capital.
We’ve stayed in Cairo when we took our first Nile cruise and Cairo holiday but this time we are going to visit the Egyptian Museum just off Tahir Square as well as visiting hotels in the city centre and near the Pyramids in Giza.
We had an early flight so we took the water-taxi from the Movenpick Aswan Hotel and then a short transfer out to Aswan Airport.
We have flown from Aswan Airport before and this time, just like the first time, we commented on how calm and relaxed the atmosphere at Aswan Airport is. Apart from the normal security hassles the rest of our time at Aswan Airport was calm and slow-paced. Very different from Manchester or Gatwick airports where everything seems much more hectic and stressful.
Our flight with Egyptair was pretty full with travelers like ourselves and Egyptian businessmen travelling up to the capital. The flight only lasts 65 minutes so the friendly cabin staff have just enough time to serve you a cold drink or coffee and then your starting your descent into Cairo.
I knew from earlier flights that the plane comes into Cairo by flying over the Pyramids. Unfortunately on this occasion we were sitting on the wrong side of the plane but the passengers on the left hand side of the cabin could all see the Pyramids and the Sphinx as we descended towards Cairo.
A little tip: make sure you sit on the left-hand side of the plane if you want to see the Pyramids.
In fact on our first flight into Cairo from Luxor I shot a short video of our approach and landing. Here’s the video just to wet your appetite.
On landing we were quickly through to the luggage pick-up were we collected our bags and then we were met by our driver for the next few days.
We were staying at the Movenpick Pyramids Hotel at Giza which is just around the corner from the Pyramids and as we approached the hotel we could see the majestic outline of the Great Pyramid just in front of us. A magical sight no matter how many times you see it.
As we came nearer er to the Movenpick we could see the enormous building site opposite the hotel that is the home of the new Egyptian Museum due to open within the next year or so.
The new museum will be enormous and promises to be one of the best in the world. When the museum does open then the Movenpick Pyramids Hotel and the Mercure Le Sphinx Hotel will be right opposite and I can only imagine that the increase in trade for both hotels will be enormous.
We had been invited to have lunch by the sales manager of the prestigious Oberoi Mena Hotel which is directly opposite the entrance to the Pyramids complex and is the nearest hotel to the Pyramids so we freshened up quickly and met our driver for the short transfer to the hotel.
I’ll tell you all about it in my next post.
