Aswan is enjoyable, it’s an approachable size (500k) and attractive to visit. We leave our dock at 6.30am and so I am on the sundeck watching Egyptian village life go by again. Making about 20 knots now since we are going downstream and North toward Luxor. But the first stop is going to be the Ptolemaic Temple at Edfu. It was started in 246BC by Ptolemy III and finished 180 years later by Ptolemy VII, Cleopatra VII’s father. The Greeks wanted to show the Egyptians, that they ruled at that time, that they also thought the Egyptian Gods were great and so they built this temple to the Egyptian God Horus. It’s the best preserved of the Egyptian Temples and the carvings and hieroglyphics are great and the stories they show are very interesting.
Christine and I didn’t intend to spend so much of our 8 months of travel getting into the antiquities but after almost 2 ½ months in Malta, Greece and now Egypt we find ourselves unexpectedly fascinated and we want to learn much more about it all now. We will see- we have 5 weeks in India and a month in SE Asia yet and that may test our stamina and appetite for all of this history.
Back to the boat for dinner as we sail further downstream for an overnight stop at Esna.
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