Egypt travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

The Claris Hotel is absolutely luxury five star hotel situated in the very heart of Barcelona. Its good location gives the opportunity to visit the Pasco de Gracia, the Plaza Catalunya and Avenida Diagonal. As well as the location is perfect for business assignments.

The hotel is really extraordinary place with its style of old Egypt and India. The exterior is a mixture of design and exhibited pieces of art. The hotel has a museum where part of the private collection of the Egyptian Museum of Barcelona is on display and to which visitors have free access.

The rooms of the hotel are spacious, large and decorated with one-off art pieces, indian sculptures, antique Napoleonic furniture and engravings. On the top floor terraces there is a fantastic swimming pool with great views and a gym.

For the gourmets the “East 47“, which is a very exclusive restaurant offers delicious cuisine.The restaurant connects the art and the brilliance of Andy Warhol with gastronomy and music, to the flavours of sushi, fresh caviar…

Sitting on the west bank of the River Nile in unique adjoining towers, the hotel proudly stands tall as one of Cairo’s greatest landmarks. Property type Hotel year built 1970 year remodeled 2001 luxurious deluxe hotel facing the glorious River Nile between city center and pyramids. It’s the first Sheraton Hotel in Egypt. The hotel places you in the middle of it all. Try your luck at Blackjack or the slots in our dazzling casino or take a short walk to the Cairo Opera House, Egyptian Museum, or Cairo shopping centers. The modern and comfortable guestrooms are well appointed. A number of restaurants and bars within the hotel provide a wide range of dining options, like El Mawardy restaurant serving local cuisine. The rooms are very large and are furnished to a high standard in a variety of tasteful colour schemes. Some rooms have excellent views of the city. The large bathrooms are in very good condition. Its elegant rooms are fully equipped for executive travelers, and the views just keep getting better the higher up you go. 650 deluxe rooms, including 113 suites and five non-smoking floors, offer magnificent views of the city or the River Nile. Amazingly spacious, are as comfortable as they are luxurious. All beds offer 100% Egyptian cotton linen for your added comfort. They are all equipped with Sat TV, IDD telephone, minibar, and in-room safe (few hotels get this facility in Egypt). Executive guests receive access to a cozy private lounge. The large lobby and reception area is located on the first floor. The public areas are elegantly appointed with the usual outlets of banks, jewellery and papyrus shops located in various positions around the lobby.
The hotel has several restaurants, the main one being superbly furnished and offering a good selection of both oriental and international dishes. While spending a sunny day by the pool, you can also enjoy a refreshing drink and a mouth-watering snack from our Pool Bar. And when night falls, your dining options open even more. Aladdin, our Lebanese restaurant serves delicious oriental dishes. Casablanca Restaurant, with its exquisite Moroccan Cuisine is one-of-a-kind. Sapporo Teppanyaki, boasts the city’s best sushi and teppanyaki. La Mamma, an Italian Restaurant is a piece of Italy in the heart of Cairo. The exclusive and luxurious atmosphere of a unique Tower’s Lounge pampers guests with snacks and refreshments all day in a cozy and elegant setting. Additional services include a fully equipped Business Center, 24-hour limo service, spa and a beauty salon. Recreational facilities are endless. Xanadu, a health club is the best place to work out and enjoy , rejuvenating Spa facilities. Enjoy a dazzling day by “Le Mirage” our outdoor swimming pool. Have a delicious meal. Enjoy the hot sunny days. Pamper yourself. Relax. Unwind.

Most temples of antiquity are eventually physically altered, defiled or destroyed. This was not the fate of Abu Simbel because encroaching sands soon buried its lower half. It lay forgotten for millennia. Abu Simbel wasn’t rediscovered and exposed until about 200 years ago.
Before little more of two years BBC carried out research between TV spectators for the 50 places which every must see while is alive. Abu Simbel was one of this places. It is set of two temples near the border of Egypt with Sudan. The larger one is Ra and Amun. The smaller temple is dedicated to the goddess Hathor, the goddess of love and beauty and also to his favorite wife – Nefertary. The facade of greater temple is 33 meters high and 38 meters broad. There is a guarded by four statues, each of which is 20 meters high. They were sculpted directly from the rock. It was constructed for the pharaoh Ramses II in the 13th century BC. Abu Simbel is the most magnificent monuments in the world. During the salvage operation in 1964-1968 the two temples were dismantled and raised around 6o meters up the sandstone cliff where they had been built more 3,000 years before.
The actual interior of the temple is inside the cliff in the form of man-made cave cut out of the living rock. From the room a doorway leads to the vestibule and beyond that is located the innermost shrine with seater statues of the gods – Ra, Ramsess, Ptah.

Dendera, is a little town in Egypt on the west bank of the Nile, about 5 km up Nile from Qina, on the opposite side of the Nile. Dendera is home of the Temple of the Goddess Hathor. Similar to other temple sites in Egypt, the presently standing complex at Dendera marks the location of a very old holy place. An indication of the antiquity of the temple site is given by the astronomical alignment of the main temple to Gamma Draconis before 5000BC. Early texts refer to a Pre-dynastic temple that was rebuilt during the Old Kingdom, and further developed by New Kingdom pharaohs including Thutmose III, Amenhotep III, and Ramses II and III.
The present structure dates to the Greek and Roman periods, with the sanctuary and its surrounding chapels built by the later Ptolemies in the 1st century BC, and the great Hypostyle Hall by the Romans in the 1st century AD. Dendera was the chief place for the worship of Hathor, who is variously seen as the patroness of earthly love, the goddess of healing, and the great feminine source of all nourishment (like the Hindu goddess Kali, Hathor also has her terrible aspects; in one ancient myth she is a raging lioness sent to punish mankind for its rebellion).

Recent studies indicate that the temple of Dendera had several interrelated functions. It was a venerated place of pilgrimage where miraculous cures were effected by the goddess; it was a sort of hospital where various physiological, psychological and magical therapies were practiced; and it was the scene of great processions and festivals throughout the astrological cycle. A feature of Dendera not found elsewhere in Egyptian temples are the dozen mysterious crypts, some underground, some enclosed within the massive double walls of the upper temple. It has been suggested that these crypts were the dwelling place of the goddess, where her statue and ritual objects were kept, and where began the great New Year’s processions celebrating the dawn of creation. In the dark of night, the temple priests brought the statue of the goddess from the crypt, through the corridors of the enormous temple and, ascending to the roof, awaited the coming of the dawn. As the first rays of the morning sun broke upon the horizon, the statue was unveiled. Ancient texts speak of this ceremony whereby: “the goddess Hathor might be united with the beams of her father, Re” and that the sky rejoices, the earth dances, the sacred musicians shout in praise.

Enclosed within the precincts of the Dendera complex are a sacred lake, a temple of the goddess Isis, and a brick sanatorium where divine healing was practiced. There is also an early Christian church that typifies the situation in so many Egyptian temples, whose sacred precincts were usurped by the Christians. Within the main temple it is interesting to study the beautiful and highly detailed astrological calendars carved and painted upon the ceilings. Visitors may wonder about the blackened condition of other ceilings in the temple. When Napolean’s scholars first visited Dendera they found a centuries-old Arab village firmly established inside the great temple; the villagers’ cooking fires had blackened the ceilings over the years.

The Dendera complex has long been one of the most tourist-explorable ancient Egyptian places of Worship. It used to be possible to visit virtually every part of the complex, from the crypts to the top most roof of Hathor temple, to every other monument located in the complex. This has changed in recent years. The top most part of the roof of Hathor temple has been closed for some years now. The last time it was open default was in 2003. The second stage of the roof was closed in November 2004, after a tourist got too close to the edge and fell to her death on the bedrock below. So be Aware pls