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Our trip to Egypt was a mixture of sea, sun, sightseeing and adventure.
We flew to Cairo and stayed three nights at the Marriot hotel (an oasis on the banks of the Nile) and wow.. wasn’t Cairo an assault on our senses!! It is a huge, hot, dirty busy metropolis pulsing with energy - I was glad to leave!

However before we moved on, we saw the Pyramids. A must on any trip to Egypt, but be prepared for the constant hassle you will encounter from the local vendors and camel owners. A little trick of theirs is to shake your hand and then deposit a small trinket in it, which they then demand payment for? Don’t be put off by the hassling it comes with any trip to Egypt and the majority of Egyptians are really lovely people.
The highlight for me in Cairo was the Egyptian Museum, which was fabulous. If you don’t know much about Egyptian history, hire a museum guide at the entrance. Negotiate a rate with them for a couple of hours - they are extremely knowledgeable and they really enhanced our visit.

From Cairo we caught the local train to Luxor and stayed at the Winter Palace hotel for a few days - a majestic faded Victorian hotel in the centre of Luxor. There is so much so see from Luxor, the Temple of Karnak, Valley of the Kings and the Temple of Luxor to name but a few. We were quite templed out by the end of our stay. One of the highlights of the trip was a hot air balloon trip over the Nile. It it was a spectacular sight to open your curtains in the early hours of the morning and see hundreds of hot air balloons floating in the sky over the Nile, so we decided to join in ourselves. We also did a day trip to Aswan and if I ever go back to Egypt I’ll spend more time in Aswan - it’s less frenzied than Luxor and you could easily spend a few days here. We hired a felucca and sailed to Elephantine Island. My favourite trip in Aswan was Philae Island where the temples were dismantled and reassembled when the Aswan dam was constructed.

Sea and sun

Our final few days were spent in the Red Sea Resort of Sharm El Sheikh. We stayed at the Reef Oasis hotel, a good all inclusive hotel with a small beach and its own reef – great for snorkelling and diving.
There are many trips you can do from Sharm. We climbed Mount Moses in the early hours and saw a spectacular sun rise over the Sinai Mountains. We followed this with a guided tour of St Catherine’s Monastery and the burning bush of Moses.