Rascals in Egypt
Trip Length: 7 days

Day 1
Upon arrival in Cairo, transfer to Mena House, where you will overnight for 4 nights in the garden wing - you will have a view of the pyramids from your room.

Day 2
Full-day tour of Giza and Saqqara. The great pyramid of Giza was built in the ancient city of Giza, a necropolis of ancient Memphis, and to day part of Greater Cairo, Egypt. It was built under the command of King Khufu. King Khufu was originally Snefru's successor. He ruled Egypt for about 25 years. Legend has told us that Snefru was a good and wise king but Khufu was known as a tyrant. He was in a way arrogant. He wanted a tomb that would be bigger and better than all of the others that had ever been built. Khufu's pyramid is a man-made pyramid. At the peak it is nearly 500 feet high and each side is roughly 750 feet long at ground level. When it was first made it was very clean and had a layer of limestone on it, and there were temples surrounding it. Over the years the limestone faded away and the temples went down into ruins. At Giza there are two other pyramids built by Khufu's successors. There is the pyramid of King Chephren which is slightly smaller than Khufu's but it look larger from a distance because it was built on higher land. The other was the pyramid of King Menkaure, which was much smaller which might show that pharaohs were losing power over the years.

With Giza, Saqqara is one of the two main necropolises of Memphis. Its monuments cover every period of Egyptian history, including the Archaic period (these are now engulfed by sand), the 3rd Dynasty and the Christian era.

Day 3
Full-day tour of the Egyptian Museum, the Citadel, and Old Cairo. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. The Egyptologist August Mariette (1821-81) was instrumental in the foundation of Cairo's Museum dedicated to Pharoanic antiquities, which provided an indispensable complement to the Egyptian Department of Antiquities established by the viceroy of Egypt, Saïd Pasha, in 1859. The original collection was housed in the suburb of Bulaq and then transferred to Giza in 1891 before re-crossing the Nile in 1902 to its present building in the Midan at-Tahrir (Liberation Square). This tailor-made museum encompasses every aspect of Ancient Egyptian civilization. The concealed basement area is as large as the section open to the public and houses an equally large collection of treasure.

The Citadel: The site, formed by the foothills of Jebel Moqattam, was first occupied in 810 when the governor Hatim Ibn Hartama built the so-called "Dome of the Wind" pavilion. It became the main residence and seat of government of Mohammad Ali, who modified the walls and constructed civil and military buildings as well as the mosque named after him. The Citadel has three distinct sections, each surrounded by walls punctuated with towers and gates: the Lower Enclosure (El-Azab), the Northern Enclosure (El-Ankishariya) and the Southern Enclosure or Citadel proper (El-Qal'a). Today the Citadel can be entered through the north (Bab el-Gadid) and south (Bab el-Gabal) gates.

Day 4
Day at leisure.

Day 5
Fly to Luxor, where you will overnight at the Old Winter Palace Hotel for 2 nights. Today you will have a tour of Karnak and Luxor Temples.

Standing in the shadow of the First Pylon of the Temple of Amun at Karnak (in Luxor, Egypt), one is struck by the length of its east-west axis and the colossal size of its columns. Like all other temples in Egypt, this one symbolizes the mound of the original creation. The ground rises ever so gradually from the entrance toward the sanctuary. The columns are stone replicas of the vegetation which was growing in the marshy land around the mound of creation. In the center of this first court are the ruins of the kiosk of Taharqa (690-664 B.C.), one column (middle ground, right) of which is complete. Beyond the kiosk before the Second Pylon are two standing statues of Ramesses II (c.1279-1213 B.C.). After the Second Pylon, the columns of the Great Hypostyle Hall can be seen.

The Temple of Luxor was linked to Karnak by the long, straight dromos completed during the reign of Nectanebo I. The paved way, which is extremely well preserved in front of the temple, crossed the city and ended before a huge sandstone gate, of which only the eroded remains can be seen today. The gate opened onto a forecourt in the corner of which stands a small Roman chapel of burnt brick, dedicated to the god Serapis during the reign of Hadrian. The Temple of Luxor used to be called Ipet Resyt, which has often been translated as "Harem of the South". More broadly speaking it was a southern palace where the god resided like a king, attended by his servants, the priests.

Day 6
Full-day tour of the Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut's Temple. Unlike the pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom, most pharaohs of the New Kingdom did not build pyramids as their tombs. Between circa 1539 BC and 1708 BC, the majority of the pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings. The pharaohs believed that this valley was the ideal burial ground since the primary peak had a pyramidal shape and the valley had only one entrance, which could easily be guarded. Unfortunately, despite the pharaohs hopes, tomb robbers had managed to ransack most of the tombs before archaeologists began to excavate in the early 1800s. Since that excavation, 62 tombs, most belonging to royalty, have been discovered. At that time in Egypt's history, the memory of dead pharaohs was sustained by funerary cults. However, members of the cults did not celebrate at the tombs, but at the pharaoh's royal temple, located between the Nile and the Valley of the Kings. United, the tombs and temples created a type of city of the dead.

The mortuary temple of Hatshepsut (c.1478/72-1458 B.C.E.) dates from the New Kingdom. It nestles at the foot of the cliffs in a natural "bay" on the West Bank of Luxor. After the introduction of Christianity, Hatshepsut's temple was used as a monastery, hence its modern name, Deir el-Bahri, Arabic for "Northern Monastery." Hatshepsut was a female pharaoh who had herself represented pictorially as a male. She served as co-regent with her nephew Thutmose III (c.1479-1425 B.C.E.).

Day 7
Depart for home cities. Optional - Fly to Abu Simbel for full day tour of this temple.