EGYPT
Golf
in front of 4000 year Pyramid
-
What
to see
At a Cairo entry a sign says :” you enter the country
of civilization”. It is a matter of fact, , nobody comes
to Egypt only for playing golf. 320 pharaohs of 32 dynasties
in 3 empires during 3 millenniums have left so many treasures
that visitors have to make their own choice between pyramids,
temples, obelisks, sculptures, tombs, mummies, jewels, furniture
and antique items of all sorts. But some are more attractive…
- Cairo
The “Mother of the World” is a monster city of
20 millions inhabitants. Hectic, jammed, noisy, polluted but
so exciting. Climbing up to the top of the tower at Gezira
island on the Nile is the best place to have an overlook of
the city of Cairo, its daily road jam, the white sail of old
feluccas in the amazing river traffic on the Nile and in the
background, the symbols of Egypt: the Sphinx and the Pyramids.
The Sphinx, a 45m long lion’s body
with the head of a king or a queen is carved from the bedrock
of the Giza plateau and symbolizes strength and wisdom. It
is a mysterious marvel from the days of ancient Egypt: nobody
knows its truly origin nor who cut its nose. It is often erroneously
assumed that the nose was shot off by Napoleon's men, but
18th century drawings reveal that the nose was missing long
before Napoleon's arrival.
Among the 92 Egyptian complete and incomplete pyramids,
ten of them stay on the Giza plateau, including
the two largest Kheops and Khefren. The significance of the
shape of the pyramid is debated, but many scholars believe
that the pyramids represent rays of the sun as seen coming
down from behind a cloud. In mortuary temples, there are references
to the soul of the king ascending along the ramp of the sun’s
rays to the sun god himself. A camel ride around is an exotic
experience while the light and sound video performance (take
care: desert can be chilly at night) before the Sphinx and
the Pyramids is a very scenic introduction to ancient Egypt
history.
As is the visit of the Egyptian Museum where
lie more than 100.000 antique pieces. The most impressive
are the sarcophagus and precious objects found in the royal
tombs of king Tutankhamon as well as the
famous Rosette stone and its carved bilingual
text which allowed the young Champollion to discover the significance
of the hieroglyphs (unfortunately it is only a replica, the
original having been transported to the British Museum in
the colonial times but never brought back!
Cairo, the city of thousands minarets, has many mosques. It
also has many churches, and the Old Coptic Cairo is a very
soulful place. Many of the mosques and churches can be visited
by tourists, some not. For most of the mosques, the entrance
of the women and the one for men is different. Also in many
cases foreign women would have to wear a scarf when visiting
the mosque, but not in the case of Mohamed Ali mosque in the
citadel.
|
|
Gezira
tower
Cairo view from the tower
Sphinx and pyramids
An exotic experience
Tutankamon
Sultan Hassan mosque
|
REPORTS | GOLFNOTES | ARCHIVES | E-MAIL 
