Cairo museum and Nile cruise

Upon arrival in Cairo we had lunch with the owner of the tour company which took a little longer than planned and as a result we had our time cut short at the Cairo museum (pic. 1). My plan was to spend 2 hours there but we only had 1.5. It is unfortunate because this is the best museum I have ever been in!

The King Tut collection is amazing. I was particularly fascinated by the gold decorations that were used to wrap the mummy. In addition, the boxes housing the mummy and organs were amazing. Apparently gold was cheaper than silver for the Egyptians so they used it on everything.

There is a picture of the queen wearing a silver dress which was very uncommon due to the expense of silver.

After our guided tour of the museum highlights, we had about a half hour to tour on our own. I was completely blown away by the detail and art on everything from the items used in everyday life to the items included in the tombs. To me this looked like a society that was so prosperous as to have alot of time on their hands for creating beautiful objects. In the half hour, I managed to cover most of the rest of the museum at a high level but would love to go back and read more of the descriptions. Unfortunately no photos were allowed.

We then headed to our promised dinner cruise on The Pharrohs boat. This was a hoot! Everything was covered in gold. There were replicas of the gold statues from the museum. There was a gold obelisk. The decorations in the boat were painted like the tombs and wall decorations. Everything was bright bold colors and gold. The food was fabulous and the entertainment was great. Pic. 2 is of the whirling dervish.