In a local cafe with some refreshing cold drinks we arranged the rest of the holiday with the superb organisation skills of Suzie!! The first trip would be to Abydos and Dendera, there was the local livestock Market and the Temple of Tod, there was a hot air balloon flight and also a visit over to the West Bank to take in the valley of the Workers, Medinet Habu, the Ramesseum and Carter's house. It had been disappointing to learn before we travelled that the cafe at Carter's House had ceased to be, but we arranged for lunch at the Al Moudira Hotel in place of that. Reports and photos of all of that shall appear as this blog goes on. As you will have noticed by now, this is all being done retrospectively, so I am having to rely on my notes, and they are not as comprehensive as they normally are due to the circumstances I found myself in, so apologies for that or any inaccuracies that you may find!!
At lunchtime we tried out the local cafe where we had had our coffee the night before. The menu on the board outside was quite impressive so we took our seats and ordered. Once again, the same scenario - although toasted sandwiches were on the menu, they weren't available. As this was a local cafe, we relied on a little bit of Arabic, English and lots of sign language!! We settled on sandwiches all round (well local finger rolls actually) and crisps - the French fries advertised also weren't available. Staff were then dispatched out to buy the rolls - well that way at least we knew they were fresh!! The beer was brought in too - that meant it wasn't chilled!! Soft drinks were OK though and they did try to get the beer as cold as possible. The staff were friendly and so pleased to see us that we decided to make this a regular place for lunch as all we wanted was something light in any case, and it meant we were supporting a small local business. The cafe is actually part of the Grand Memphis Hotel and the staff were eager to show us the views from the top floor. Here is a sample of what can be seen
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| Typical grocer shop |
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| A peek through the trees into the Winter Palace Hotel grounds |
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| Can you spot the geese (or ducks) on the roof? I had no idea they were there until I got home and looked at the photos on the computer!" |
That night hubby and I and our travelling companions went to Puddleduck for dinner, and it was just excellent. Jill and Mick who run this restaurant are excellent hosts and the food is superb (at least, that's how we found it). Once again we walked through the local streets and did not encounter any hassle whatsoever - in fact everyone was really friendly and seemed so pleased to see us.
We planned another quiet day for Friday to top up the batteries before our full day trip to Abydos and Dendera on the Saturday.
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