It’s a new day – and I’m straving! Clearly the airport and airplane food wasn’t sufficient – and I’m thinking Breakfast!

So Victor and I get up – and get going. First stop – Breakfast at the Kempinski Nile – and What a breakfast it is!

I’m totally blown away. And it’s not like I haven’t enjoyed some pretty impressive breakfasts in my life – but this one – wow. And it was included in our reservation. Color me very very happy.

Naturally – my first stop is coffee – but you are not allowed to get your own – oh no – there are two coffee waiters and it is their job to get my coffee.

Ok – Latte would be perfect – and they smile, nod, and disappear, returning quickly with a small but completely perfect Latte. Yum.

Meanwhile, I’m investing the breakfast options. There are several different service areas. First I see the fruit juices – fresh squeezed Mango, Guava, Orange and a fourth choice that I can’t remember.

2nd section – the fruit station – some fruits I recognize, like grapefruit and oranges, others I think look familiar – like dates, and a lot of fruits that I’ve honestly never seen before. I try something white – and I’m no wiser. On this section there are also a lot of round fruits – green, white, pink, red – but my bravery only goes so far. I’ll skip them for now. Also on the fruit station are the meats and cheeses. So many options.

3rd section – the Honey Comb and raw honey selection! Wow – My camera is out immediately. That’s the largest Honey Comb I’ve ever seen!

4th section – the Bread choices. I’d say I recognize maybe 4 or 5 of the options – the rest are mysteries. Not quite pastries, but they look to be sweet. I’m sure at least 3 different options were in the donut family, but the ones that appeal to me the most are decorated with sesame seeds – both white and black. They are in different shapes – round and cresent variations, and I gleefully grab a round one with black seeds. Then I turn around and realize there’s another station behind me with cereals like oatmeal (delicious) and Fool (fava beans I’m told – but not green – more of a grey). There are toppings for the hot cereals – standards like nuts, but other options I really don’t recognize.

And there’s an omlet station! Now that looks familiar – and delicious.

Since it’s my first breakfast here – and I’m not sure how my stomach is going to react to gastronomical challenges – I opt to go safe. We are here for 3 nights – I’ll be braver tomorrow!

After my delicious breakfast, we take a hired car to the GEM. I’d bought us tour tickets for 10:00, and based on last nights travel adventure – I’m leaving lots of time to get to the Museum. Ahmad is quite friendly – the car is a mini-van – even though it’s just the two of us.

The plan is that the car is ours for the day – and we trade phone numbers. I’m to message Ahmad when we’re ready to head back to the hotel.

After info exchange – we head to the GEM. This time it’s both daylight, and not rush hour – although the traffic is still quite insane. We can see more and more appartment buildings – and I point out to Victor how many appear to have deserted floors. Not only do the floor appear vacant – they often have no windows, and the ones we can see inside have no finishing inside either. We spend the ride trying to guess what causes this – I suggest that maybe when you move out you take the windows with you, Victor thinks that maybe something has happened and the owners have never moved in at all. I decide to definitely ask when we meet our guide tomorrow.

From one of the many multi-lane highways in Cairo, Ahmad rounds a corner – and there is the GEM. It’s over 500,000 ft of exibit space making it one of the largest museums in the world. The entire thing is done on a massive scale – in keeping with the massive size of the objects on display.

I’d pre-bought tickets – and despite my language concerns – folks generally speak English – and everyone is super helpful. It’s the massive size that is the most daunting.

We find how to get earphone sets for our tour – and join our guide. She’s obviously highly experienced, and after a bried info proceeds to guide us thru the top exhibit in a 2 hour tour. About 1 hour of the tour is devoted to King Tut – all 5000+ of the object discovered in his tomb are on display. And the rest of the tour is spent pointing out the highlights of the exhibits related to other Kings.

The grandeur simply can not be described in words. Nor can words describe the crowding. Our guide estimates that there are more than 5000 visitors today – a relatively standard week-day load. I’m betting that 1/2 of them were in the King Tut Galleries. Good thing are are 6 of them, right?

The center part of the musuem is an open air atrium that runs the full height of the building. To reach the main exhibit areas – all located on the top level, on the left side of the Atrium – you can opt to take an upward moving sidewalk, or climb stairs. Or guide takes the walkway – and talks to us about what she’s seeing as we move slowly up past the Egyptain timeline. Everything is on a simply gigantic scale. Even the moving sidewalk is split into 5 parts!

King Tut is clearly the highlight of our first tour – and our guide makes sure that we play attention to what she thinks are the highlights of that collection. So yes we get time with the all gold funeral mask, she points out dagger with the iron blade – created hundreds of years before iron was created, and most importantly – talks about the 8 layers of Sarcophgus.

I hadn’t appreciated the sheer size of the outer 4 Wooden Boxes that were nested, one inside the next. They are quite literally room sized – and decorated with gold that has been engraved with glorious Designs – including of course – Eyes of Horus.

But even more stunning are the inner coffins (he had 4). From Gold covered carved wood to solid gold – they are beautiful. And in absolutely perfect condition.

It’s the condition of the items – all 4000 years old – that of course makes them most remarkable.

After the tour – Victor and I decide to try the Multi-Reality show on the creation of the pyramids – from simple dug graves, to the humble ‘bread’ momunent – thru the step Pyramid to the Great Pyramid that is visible from the ‘Pyramid Viewing Gallery’. It’s cute – but not a must see.

The real must see is the Boat of King Korfu. Discovered fairly recently, it was used to transport the body of the King to Giza, then disassempbled and carefully placed into a boat shaped pit dug to one side of the Great Pyramid. After the discovery, the boat was treated like a jig-saw puzzle and re-assembled.

It is massive – over 150 feet long – and intact. Over 4000 years old – Organic – and beautifully preserved.

We grab lunch at Zooba – an upscale Egyptian Fast Food Restaurant in the GEM and very highly rated. Yum.

Then we contact Ahmed to let him know we’re ready to head out. As we leave – we realize they are closing the GEM for some dignatary – and said VIP is arriving right now! Yikes. I ask who is coming – and find out that it is the wife of the Turkish President who has come to chat the Egypitan Leader.

We quickly regroup with Ahmad and head out – we are lucky and manage to escape the parking area secuirty detail right before the VIP shows up. Whew.

The trip back to the hotel is much easier than the trip to the GEM. Victor and I are totally wiped out – we’ve done a lot of walking and a lot of traveling in the last 2 days – and we need some down time.

The roof of the Kempinski is the perfect hideout. There’s a heated swimming pool, nice tables, a bar and food service team, and a magnificant view over the Nile. We relax, chat, blog, and wind-down. Tomorrow is another long day.

Signing off over-looking tourist boats on the Nile – the Soup Lady