DAY 7 -- Falcons and Crocodiles

This morning we cruised to Edfu and the Temple of Horus, falcon-headed god of the sky. The City of Edfu is located on the west bank of the Nile between Esna and Aswan.

We left the boat for a short buggy ride through Edfu to the temple.

Along our route the street was lined with coffee shops.

This was our view from inside the buggy.

We were visiting during the winter, and the weather was perfect. I am sure during spring, summer and fall, these outdoor cafes were very popular with the Egyptians after dark as a respite from the heat.

As we traveled along in our buggy, we encountered many interesting sites.

Busy bread stores.

Traffic of all kinds.

I am not completely sure, but I think this truck has a painting of Christ giving water to the lands.

This young boy might be delivering dry cleaning.

The market place was very busy.

The many bread stores were doing big business this morning.

More bread.

These are tools for sale.

After we arrived, all the buggies lined up for the trip back to the boat.

Edfu flourished in ancient times. Today, the most important monument in the City of Edfu is the Temple of Horus, one of the most beautiful and preserved Temples in Egypt. Its origins likely date back to the Second Intermediate Period, but the actual Temple only dates back to Ptolemaic times during the reign of Cleopatra VII.

There was another long avenue leading up to the entrance pylons.

You can see how the city surrounded the Temple in 1956.

This is the inner courtyard.

This hieroglyphic shows a crowning ceremony with both of the upper and lower Egyptian crowns. Note how the carvings have started to show more of the human form. 

A battle scene with a chariot.

We are sitting at the base of the statue of Horus, the falcon-headed God.

Back on the boat, we had several other cruise ships tagging along behind us.

We passed this cruise ship.

In this panoramic view there are ships in front of us and behind us.

At one point we could clearly see the change in the landscape where irrigation was done and where the desert took over. It was as if someone drew a line in the sand.

I spotted this dredging barge and quickly snapped a shot and sent it back to grandson LW (by way of his mom BHB).  She texted back the he looked at it and said it was going to fall over and go under the water. LOL

During the afternoon cruise the chef had a cooking lesson while Hubby D and I enjoyed the scenery from the lounge chairs on the top deck.

There was a lot of conversation on the top deck. It was very comfortable to sit, sip wine and talk with our traveling friends.

Later as the sun was setting, we disembarked at Kom Ombo (hill of gold) to visit the Greco-Roman temple dedicated to Haroeris (Horus the Elder and the sun god) and Sobek (the crocodile god), who was considered by some ancient Egyptians to be the creator of the world.

The Kom Ombo Temple is unusual in that it is a double temple, with one side dedicated to the god Haroesis and the other side to Sobek. The design is almost perfectly symmetrical, with two side-by-side sanctuaries and two parallel passageways leading through the outer parts of the temple.

On the back wall of the temple exists the very first known representations of precise surgical tools. Some of these tools include suction caps, scalpels, bone saws, dental tools, medicine bottles, forceps, birthing chairs and forceps. The Egyptians claim they invented these tools (according to our guide).

In this wall relief we see Cleopatra III, Cleopatra II and Ptolemy VIII before Horus.

Cleopatra's cartouche was found in this temple along with carvings showing several generations of Cleopatra.

While there, we saw the mummified remains of several crocodiles that once basked along the ancient Nile shore, just as their descendants do today. 

Tonight was a very special evening, an Egyptian costume party. It was really fun and we all looked so wonderful.

Hubby D was a great King Tut. But I had to remind him Tut died when he was only 17 and probably did not have a beard.

DW and I had a lot of fun with our new friend JD.

Another wonderful and adventurous day on the Nile ends with much needed rest. Tomorrow we will arrive at our final destination on the Nile River, Aswan.

Cheers,
Brenda

Welcome to the Guest Bed and Bath

The guest bathroom was a major remodel but thankfully we did not need to change the floor plan. Both the bedroom and bath just needed updating.  Whew!

Red with gold trim was the theme in this bathroom when we purchased the home.

We replaced louvered closet doors with solid doors in the hallway, new tile on the floor and in the shower, new sink, fixture and mirror.  Luckily the marble slab for the kitchen island was large enough to also create the countertop for the guest bath sink and it turned out great!

Some of the light fixtures in the house seemed to come from the 70's or early 80's. They were very distinctive.

All the new fixtures and tile transformed the bathroom into a really wonderful space. During the house project we remodeled four and a half bathrooms and this is my favorite transformation. It just turned out beautiful.

We gutted the bath and started from the floor and worked our way up.

The small blue accent tiles were a bit tricky to install.

The marble for the countertop arrived on a big truck.

The bedroom was very white and with the new flooring, it was easy to redecorate. Here is it before.

We covered the 9-foot window in the guest bedroom with new plantation shutters.  Then the room was painted and a new ceiling fan was installed.  It turned out nice.

Before the window had miniblinds. The new plantation shutters took 3 months to order BUT only a few minutes to install. They were well worth the wait and the cost.

After the guest bedroom and bath were complete, we moved out of the master bedroom where we had been living and moved into the guest bedroom and smaller bathroom so we could start working on the master bedroom and bath.

Our living space just kept getting smaller.  But at this time, the kitchen had reached a point where we could use most of the appliances and we had the outdoor kitchen as well. It was all livable and mostly comfortable.

Hubby D was still doing a lot of traveling so it was not too bad.

I would get to see LW almost every day and I also started playing golf with a group of ladies at the country club. My golf skills needed work but the golf group was very forgiving and it was fun.

The Royal Golf Course in Bahrain was the last time I played. It was fun and I wasn't very good there either.

It is interesting that in looking back, it does not seem the construction was so bad.  I remember at the time I was starting to get tired of construction debris and dirt.  I know Hubby D was.  

We had some set backs along the way. Mostly it was a struggle to keep on schedule. The subs all had reasons why they took 3 or 4 weeks to do something they had told me would take 1 week.

In Florida, Friday is usually not a full workday as the surf might be up, or the fish might be biting.  Monday can also be a short day as it might take the subs a bit to get back into the swing of things.  Many of the tradesmen were excellent. Some were unreliable. A few were just bad.

Sometimes things completely outside our control caused the delay.  One of the painters just never came back to the job. Why?  I will never know – he just never returned and also never returned any of my frantic phone calls. And, then I fired the next two painters.  After that I decided to do the finish work myself.

The living room rug arrived with a huge hole in it and had to be reordered (3 months).

The upstairs carpet also arrived with several holes from a forklift in the rug. It took a couple of weeks to get them back out again.

The laundry room cabinets were delayed. Why? Never found out why.

After it was installed, the first faucet for the master vessel bathtub leaked badly and we struggled to find a different one.

Tile in the master bath had to be redone to fit the configuration the new faucet.

Custom glass for both the guest bathroom and the master bathroom showers could not be measured and ordered until all the tile work was complete and then it took an additional 6 weeks to be fabricated.

While we worked on finishing up the main level of the house and completing the master suite, I started ordering furniture and drapes. It was finally all starting to come together.

Guest Bath BEFORE

Guest Bath AFTER

Guest Bedroom BEFORE

Guest Bedroom AFTER

We lived in the smaller guest bedroom while we were finishing the master bed and bath. I will admit, when were were living there it did not look as nice as it does in this photo. We had the guest bed in addition to our master bed (leaning up against the wall), our desk and two chairs squeezed into the room along with all our clothes jammed into the closet. To say the very least it was crowded! But we survived and moved on to finish the rest of the house.

Cheers,

Brenda