No, not our hotel, unfortunately (the Explore Tour hotel was a bit of a flea trap!).  This is the 4 star Marriott, which was the only place we could find a cold beer in the afternoon.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops), the largest in Egypt, located on the Giza Plateau just outside Cairo. Its name was "Khufu's Horizon."  Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Khufu's Pyramid is the first, and only survivor.

The two southern boat pits were discovered in 1954, during cleaning work, by the young Egyptian architect and archeologist Kamal el-Mallakh and inspector Zaki Nur. The eastern pit was covered by a roof of forty-one huge limestone slabs weighing between 17 and 20 tons each..

The cedar boat now on display was originally dismantled into 1,224 individual parts. On top of the wood was a layer of mats and ropes, an instrument made of flint, and some small pieces of white plaster. The prow of the boat, a wooden column topped by a round wooden disk, was found at the western end of the pit. This column was connected to two long wooden pieces that extended along the bottom of the pit. Most of the wooden parts had been tied together with ropes. Also found inside the pit were many other items, such as twelve oars, each mad from a single piece of wood, fifty-eight poles, three cylindrical columns and five doors.

It is 43.3 meters (142 feet)  long and made of Lebanese cedar wood and some acacia. Its displacement was 45 tons. The maximum draft is 1.48 meters (5 feet). It is 5.9 meters wide. The separate parts of the boat had numerous U-shaped holes so that the boat could be 'stitched' together using ropes made of vegetable fibers. Interestingly many of the boats planks were marked with signs for prow, stern, port and starboard.

No nails were used in the construction and the planking was assembled through an ingenious system of stitching through holes with ropes of vegetable fibres. When the wood was swollen by water the ropes would tighten and make the boat watertight.

Because its apex is in better condition and it is located on an elevation (of about 10 meters), Khafre's sometimes appears to be the largest of the three great Pyramids of the Giza Plateau.  However, originally it was some three meters lower than its neighboring pyramid belonging to Khafre's father, Khufu.  In fact, the walls of Khafre's pyramid are steeper than the Great Pyramid of Khufu (53^o 10' as opposed to Khufu's 51^o 40^'), so it contains considerably less mass. It's name is "Khafre is Great".

Me trying to do an "Indiana Jones" moment, but my zoom wasn't good enough.

The original descending entrance corridor, surmounted by a double vault and offset by 7.29 meters (24 feet) east from the centre axis about 16.76 meters (55 feet) high on the level of the thirteenth pier.

The body of the Sphinx, almost 60m long and 20m high, was carved from alternate soft and hard layers of sediments of marly limestone laid down during the formation of the Giza plateau in the geological Eocene period. .

The harder layers were quarried, blocks extracted for Old Kingdom building projects and it is now possible to identify the stone used in each of the nearby structures, providing evidence of the sequence of quarrying. The walls of Khafre's valley temple were probably composed of massive blocks from the upper part of the Sphinx's body, while some of the limestone blocks of the Sphinx Temple came from an area around the Sphinx's chest.

The head of the Sphinx represents an Egyptian ruler wearing a nemes head-dress and once had a uraeus-serpent on it's forehead and a royal beard (fragments exist now in museums). The human head is small in proportion to the lion's body and it is suggested that the body may have been elongated to take into account a natural fissure in the rock which would have prevented the workmen from completing the carving of the rear quarters.

The single entrance to the enclosure is the southernmost doorway on the eastern side of the wall (the only one of the 15 doorways which is not a false door) and leads to the entrance colonnade. 

20 pairs of engaged columns, resembling bundles of reeds or palm ribs line the corridor. Between the columns are 24 small chambers, thought perhaps to represent the nomes of Upper and Lower Egypt, which may once have contained statues of the King or deities. The roof of the entrance colonnade was constructed to represent whole tree trunks.

The pyramid structure rises above the plateau in a series of six stepped 'mastabas' and was surrounded by a complex of dummy buildings enclosed within a niched limestone wall over 10m high.

Original graffiti on tomb wall

Step Pyramid was first constructed as a square mastaba which was enlarged and expanded in six stages, eventually becoming a 4-step mastaba and then a 6-step structure which was no longer square, but had become a rectangle oriented east-west. The limestone blocks were laid in courses which were inclined towards the centre of the pyramid.

We also saw a couple of mastabas, which we couldn't take photos in - Mereuka's tomb (he was a vizier).

 We could only get this close - the area is still a military area and we were ordered not to take any photos of the military.  This pyramid was called 'Snefru is shining in the south' and which we now know as the 'Bent Pyramid' because of its shape. It is located about 3km west of the modern village of Dahshur on the desert plateau.

Snefru built two large pyramids at Dahshur. His first, known as the 'Bent Pyramid', is situated to the south of the necropolis while his second monument at Dahshur is about 4km to the north and known as the 'North' or 'Red Pyramid'. The monument whose ancient name was probably 'Snefru Shines' was to be Snefru's third attempt at pyramid construction (including Meidum) - his architects now using the technical experience gained from previous structures, a reduced angle of slope and less ambitious plan. It is thought to have been begun in Snefru's 30th year of reign and dates found in builders' marks on blocks from the Red Pyramid have proved to be of great importance in giving a clear picture of the time it took to build the pyramid.

This statue of Rameses II is a twin to the statue erected in the centre of Midan Rameses in Cairo. The museum piece is only a fragment, but even without its lower legs it measures nearly thirteen metres and once stood with its companion outside the Temple of Ptah at Memphis.

Hardly anything is left of the ancient site - and it was actually quite un-inspiring, compared to what we had seen already.

Timings got a bit mixed up here with the photos I guess.  We actually went to the Bent and Red Pyramids after Memphis. During the construction of the pyramid the plan was changed when architects appear to have realised that the angle of slope was too steep, so at almost half way up, the inclination was reduced, effectively reducing both the projected height of the pyramid and the weight of stone in its upper courses

The name 'Red Pyramid' has derived from the colour of limestone used in constructing the pyramid's core - it's casing of white limestone is now completely missing.

View from our balcony.  Lovely hotel and area but we were ordered not to leave the hotel - a bunch of crap but the tour leader was a big wuss and was afraid.

a.k.a "Dumb and Dumber" - don't know which was more useless - actually we do - it was Osama, not only useless but ruined a large part of the trip with his crap guiding - oh and his daily bouts of "sickness" so he never finished a tour of a site practically.  Poor Rich, actually to get stuck with such a heinous guide on his 1st tour.

Actually we had an extremely LONG time looking at this, as after telling us not to stray from this/the bus and we'd only have 10 minutes, Rich and Osama disappeared for an hour and left us just standing here.

The pyramid at Meidum was constructed in steps in the manner of the old style step pyramids, first with seven steps which was amended to eight and then filled in with packing and regular courses of better quality stone to create a smooth surface.

Looking up to the ceiling inside the pyramid.

The corbelled roof of the burial chamber projects above the bedrock in the masonry of the pyramid and looking up you can see the high corbelled walls, where there are still traces of an ancient wooden beam, perhaps intended to be used to facilitate lifting the sarcophagus.

Angela was our resident expert, but because of stupid rules of the Egyptian authorities, she wasn't allowed to openly guide us at any of the sites - even when we figured out what a moron Osama was.  So she (and her pal Liz on a busman's holiday) stealthfully tried to give us more info whenever possible.

Another nice hotel at El Minya, but once again were told we were not allowed out of the hotel.  Some of the group ignored Richard and went for a walk along the Nile esplanade anyway though.

Beni Hasan is a small village, south of el-Minya, where an important group of rock-cut tombs are carved into the high limestone cliffs on the east bank of the Nile.

The contrast of the desert meeting the Nile strip of fertile land was amazing.

The walk up to the tombs.

Once again, no photos allowed but click here to see some shots and info on Beni Hassan.  Thanks to this website for giving lots of info to put on this site.

Akhetaten was the capital city of the Dynasty XVIII king, Akhenaten, called by some ‘the heretic king’. Akhenaten, formerly Amenhotep IV, built his city in a bay of cliffs on the east bank of the Nile as a centre for the worship of his ‘new’ religion, Atenism.

Note the natty sun hat (piece of cardboard tied under the chin with a bit of string)

This was the type of transport we were taken around the site, complete with armed escort (many of their machine guns scarily held together with gaffer tape).