This weekly wrap-up covers our journey from November 10 to November 16. We traveled from Alexandria to Luxor via train (15 hours of travel, woo woo!) on Tuesday, then headed back up to Giza via train (only 10 hours this time) on Friday. Whereas Alexandria was like a long, lazy weekend (i.e. sleep in, get brunch, do one activity, spend time in our air-conditioned room in the afternoon), Luxor was full of touring ancient sites, of which Egypt (and especially Luxor) has a wealth. On Saturday, we ventured into Cairo (just across the Nile from Giza) to do a little exploring, then returned to Giza to watch the evening light show at the pyramids from the roof of our guesthouse.
Favorite thing we ate: Megan really loved the fried eggplant we had during a traditional Egyptian dinner at Blue Sky Restaurant in Luxor [far left dish in above left picture]. The view of the pyramids from our guesthouse rooftop in Giza made our breakfast there Jonathan’s favorite meal of the week [above right]. Side note: We highly recommend Pyramids Guest House if you ever visit Cairo/Giza and want to stay on the Giza side!
Favorite thing we drank: Egypt also has lemon mint widely available [pictured above at a seaside cafe in Alexandria], which we became slightly addicted to while in Jordan. The drink is typically more of a juice than a smoothie in Egypt, which we like. (In Jordan, it was often like a frozen drink.)
Favorite thing we did: Jonathan has been wanting to do a hot air balloon ride for a long time. We’ve looked into it in a couple different cities, but it was always so expensive. In Luxor, it was only $80 USD/person for the sunrise flight including a transfer, so we went for it [pictured above left]. (Looking back, maybe price should not be the determining factor of something like a hot air balloon ride 2000 feet above the ground … but we’re still here!) Megan’s favorite activity of the week was visiting the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the modern version of the Library of Alexandria [above right]. (No surprise here!)
Biggest splurge: At $80 a pop, the balloon ride was also our biggest splurge of the week, but as mentioned above: it was a great value.
Best deal: Our first-class train tickets all the way from Alexandria to Luxor cost only $13 USD each. Considering the sleeper train marketed to tourists costs $80 USD each, we thought this was a steal! Due to past attacks on trains on Egypt, the country started pushing tourists toward the sleeper trains, and they didn’t even let foreigners buy daytime train tickets for a while. (I’m not sure about the logic behind grouping all the tourists together on one train if you’re worried about people attacking tourists, but at least they were trying to present a solution?) It is possible to buy tickets for the day trains now, and we had no issues. We were the only foreigners in our car, so I guess most non-Arab tourists still prefer the sleeper trains, but the trains were some of the most comfortable we’ve ridden (look how much room Jonathan has in the picture above!) and we would absolutely recommend it as a way to travel in Egypt. (Just make sure you have plenty of entertainment downloaded for the long ride.)
What we’re reading: Jonathan finished Recursion by Blake Crouch on the train (if you liked Dark Matter, you will also enjoy this one!). Megan finished The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo and recommends it to all of you—it’s possibly her favorite novel from all of 2019! Spending so much time on the train meant she also read two other books (one so awful it’s not worth mentioning, and The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall) and started two others (Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson and the essay collection Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino).
Total walking distance: 30.92 miles
Up next: Back to the Balkans! Stay tuned to see where.
Featured image: Tiled scene along the Corniche (waterfront promenade) in Alexandria
Hi Megan, i glad to see your post. It was so informative and descriptive. Thumbs up!!