【Egypt Tour】Philae Temple, Abu Simbel, suitable time and attractions
🌅✨ 2024.02.04 Day 4 - Philae Trip & Abu Simbel Miracle ✨🌅
Good morning, Egypt! Today’s itinerary is full of mystery and miracles. Let us explore the cultural treasures of Egypt together! 🇪🇬☀️
🕗 7am - Temple of Philae
Early in the morning, we arrived at the beautiful Nile River in Aswan to visit the Temple of Philae. This temple is regarded as a symbol of love and beauty. It was once faced with flooding due to the construction of the Aswan Reservoir and was later moved to Ajikya Island. This ancient temple is famous for its colorful reliefs and stone columns and is a treasure of Egyptian mythology and religion.
We also felt how much Egyptians like taking photos with Asians. Every day when we went to the temple, we were constantly asked to take photos, and when we walked on the street. I even wondered if the Egyptians made bets with their friends on how many Asians they could take photos with every day!
🚗 09:00 - Head to Abu Simbel
Next, we set off on our journey to the world-famous Abu Simbel. This magical place was built by the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II in memory of himself and his queen. The most unique thing about the Abu Simbel temples is that in order to avoid being flooded by the reservoir, the entire temple was disassembled, moved to higher ground, and reassembled.
After a 3.5-hour drive, we arrived at Abu Simbel Temple at 1pm. There were no group tourists when we arrived, and they were all individual tourists who chartered their own cars, so it was easy to take pictures of the empty scenery.
We took a leisurely walk to the Abu Simbel Temples. This magnificent complex is known as the "Temple of the Sun", and twice a year the sun's rays shine through the temple halls, illuminating the faces of the deities. This is the pinnacle of ancient Egyptian architectural art.
We also met YouTuber NeNe here, but I didn’t know who he was at first, I just knew he was Taiwanese, so we started chatting and strolling around together. We stayed until 3pm before I left. I was super hungry and hadn’t checked in yet, so we went to a nearby restaurant to eat and check in.
🏡 16:00 - Rest at B&B & lunch
The homestay we stayed in this time was Abu Simbel Nubian Guest house. When we arrived, the owner's wife prepared a welcome drink, Roselle tea, for me to drink. When I entered the room, I smelled a fragrant scent and felt that the room was very clean. The whole space was very warm! Accommodation near Abu Simbel Temple is very expensive. Ordinary hotels cost about 3,600 to 5,000. If you want one that costs about 2,000, it is quite far from the temple and takes more than 30 minutes to walk. The B&B I booked is about 2,900$95 USD, about 15 minutes to walk from the temple. Although the toilet is not in the room, each room has its own bathroom. There is also a kitchen in the B&B, and the refrigerator is filled with fruits, drinks and water. Of course, they are all free to take. I really recommend it! I highly recommend everyone to stay here
In addition to helping me buy tickets for the temple light show, the boss also exchanged currency with us (1:55) and drove us to the temple to watch the light show at night. It was super convenient! The key point is that the boss helped us arrange a chartered boat to watch the sunrise in front of the temple the next morning! This event really put a perfect end to our trip to Abu Simbel!
🍽 18:30 - Light show (about 40 minutes)
When night falls, we head to the temple to enjoy the light show of Abu Simbel Temple. Every ray of light is poetic and picturesque, giving new life to this thousand-year-old temple. That’s what they say, but actually it seems like it doesn’t matter if you don’t watch this light show, because the content is a bit boring, plus the sound and light effects and images at the beginning are not very clear, and most importantly, the dubbing is in Chinese and it really distracts us! Because when we went there about half of the people were Chinese, so the film that day was dubbed in Chinese! However, the standard dubbing by Chinese voice actors gave the whole film a very strange atmosphere. I originally wanted to encourage everyone to go see this light show (because I don’t want to be the only one being fooled), but I still want to stop people from wasting their money! It is more practical to save your money and use it to take a boat and watch the sunrise!
It was almost eight o'clock when we returned to the hotel in the evening. We ate the instant noodles and canned food we prepared to experience the Taiwanese flavor, hahahaha
This day's journey made us deeply feel the profound history and cultural treasures of Egypt. Looking forward to more adventures tomorrow! 🌌✨ #PhilaeTemple #abusimbeltemple #AbuSimbelMagic #EgyptianWonders