Being an important port city on the Adriatic Sea just 30 minutes from Tirana, you would think Durrës, Albania, would be teeming with tourists.
The city center of Tirana may seem short on sightseeing, but between the museums, religious buildings, and the Blloku area, there’s enough to keep a visitor busy for a day or two.
The Golden Gate was built in 1017 by Yaroslav the Wise as one of three main entrances in the Kyiv city walls. It was originally called the Southern Gate, then the Great Gate of Kyiv.
After some free time in Luxor, the next stop on the tour was the Karnak Temple, part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing for Luxor.
Following our visit to the West Bank of the Nile, the tour group arrived in the UNESCO World Heritage city of Luxor. Luxor was the ancient city of Thebes (Θῆβαι).
Our group arrived in the UNESCO World Heritage city of Luxor late in the afternoon after two days of cruising the Nile. After we docked, we were treated to a gorgeous sunset over the Nile.
After cruising along the Nile from Kom Ombo, the ship docked in the very early morning hours at Edfu. We got started at 6am by taking a horse-drawn carriage through the city to the Temple of Edfu, where we were attacked by hordes of vendors.
As we cruised along the Nile, our first stop before after setting off from Aswan was Kom Ombo. We reached the dock early in the evening. By the time we got to the temple, it was dark, but that made the visit much more interesting for me.
On no sleep, I left the Egyptian riverboat and entered the minibus at 4am. It was a bumpy three hour ride from Aswan to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Abu Simbel and I barely got a chance to sleep on the way.
My favorite temple in Egypt by far is the Philae Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site along with Abu Simbel. For me, it had everything – a picture-perfect peaceful setting on a small island, the sun was hitting it at just the right angle, and (luckily) there were no other tourists but our group. The fact you have to take a pleasant boat ride to it made it even more appealing. I wish I had more time to enjoy the scenery, but my hour and a half spent there was perfect.