Things to see and do Sahara

Natural source surrounded by a mysterious legend. It is said to be drying off as soon as we get away from it.

Khaemhat was royal scribe and inspector of the royal granaries during the reign of Amenophis III, whose 38-year reign was marked by peace, wealth and power. His highly ornamented tomb reveals rural scenes and religious representations, such as the sacrifice of geese. Among the bas-reliefs adorning the walls of his tomb are several depictions of the agrarian goddess Renenoutet, in the guise of a snake-headed woman suckling her son. Khaemhat took great care to ensure that this goddess watched over his final resting place.

The grave is 91 m long. It was dug for the son of Thutmes III. One descends into the tomb by stepping over ritual holes, intended to ward off demons. The burial chamber is illustrated with the Book of Amduat and its ceiling is studded with the Star of Nut. Its sarcophagus is still in place, magnificently decorated. His mummy was still inside at the time of his discovery. It was in one of the annexes of the burial chamber that nine other royal mummies had been stored, hidden from the thieves' desires.

A cleaner source than others and located 32 km.

The mountains around the village of Sainte-Catherine are extraordinary. Absolute peace and granite mountains provide the backdrop for a variety of hikes, beyond Mount Moses, the most famous and most frequented, and Mount Sainte-Catherine, which is quite arduous. Day-long to week-long hikes can be organized, with or without camels. Don't hesitate to enlist the help of an English-speaking agency (Bedouin guides' English is sometimes limited), or use the village camps for the more experienced.

Djebel Abbas (2,344 m). Situated 6 km west of the monastery, it can be recognized by the castle ruins crowning its summit. This vestige dates back to the ^19th century, when Khedive Abbas chose the site for a desert cure. Some time after the work had begun, Abbas Pasha changed his mind, preferring to settle on the sacred mountain itself. To get to Mount Abbas, the best route is up wadi Abu Selleh, wadi Bougieh... and down through small palm groves occupied by Bedouins.

Djebel Bab el Dounia. The hike to the "Gateway to the World" mountain takes 3 days and 2 nights. We also recommend the Algalt Et Azrak (Blue Pound) valley, where you can enjoy a swim

Valley of the 40 prophets. Situated between Mont Moïse and Mont Sainte-Catherine, this is a must if you're doing the 2 hikes in succession, which is sustained but extraordinary. Here you can sleep in Bedouin summer villages.

All around the oasis, made of basalt.

Only a few ruins remain of the ancient city, located in Kom el-Ashmuneïm, 8 km from Tuna el-Gebel. But new discoveries suggest that Tuna el-Gebel will not remain in the shadows for long. In 2017, the Egyptian authorities reported the discovery of a necropolis with numerous funerary wells dating from the end of the Pharaonic period (26th dynasty and after) and the beginning of the Ptolemies in the mid-4th century. In the region of Tuna el-Gebel, opposite Amarna, and 60 km south of Minya, the Egyptian mission is continuing the excavations .

Nefertari, the most famous of Ramses II's wives, is buried in this magnificent tomb, rediscovered in 1904. Access is via a staircase leading to the antechamber, where the queen is depicted on the left wall playing senet, a kind of chess game. On the right is the vestibule, of rare beauty, featuring the sovereign before Osiris and Amun, Thoth and Anubis. A staircase leads to 2 annexes where Nefertari is depicted before 3 genies. Lastly, access is gained to the burial chamber, supported by 4 massive pillars, which surround the tomb more in place.

One of the great achievements undertaken by UNESCO to safeguard the Nubian heritage, this museum opened its doors at the end of 1997. Entirely built in pink granite, it houses splendid pieces from Nagada 1 and 2 to Islamic and Christian Nubia. The name Nubia currently applies to the region stretching from the city of Aswan in the north to Debba.

It possessed important riches: gold, copper, semi-precious stones and amethyst. It was also the passage point for products from Equatorial Africa such as ivory, incense, eggs and ostrich feathers

Nubia has never been geographically isolated from Egypt, but it was not until 1899 that Lower Nubia was attached to Egypt, a British treaty ending the disputes caused by Mohammed Ali.

In 1907, the first Aswan Dam was built. On 8 March 1960, Unesco launched an appeal for an international expedition to save the Nubian monuments. Philae, Abu Simbel and the others will be moved, and Ancient Nubia will be flooded, forcing its inhabitants to emigrate to the north.

Such a civilization, charged with such an ancient history, had of course a priceless heritage characterized by the architecture of its habitat, its craftsmanship and its artistic expression.

The Nubia Museum traces the existence of this people step by step. The exhibition portrays the rich history of this region, which during the Hellenic, Roman, Coptic and Islamic periods retained its full identity.

The museum is located next to the Commonwealth Cemetery. It displays collections of weapons, uniforms of both armies, as well as guns and documents relating to the battle. Models reconstruct the evolution of the fighting from 23 October to 4 November 1942. It's all very moving.

The museum consists of five rooms. The first, called the "common room", contains glass boxes containing items from all the countries that took part in the Battle of El-Alamein. Life-size statues of the main players in this battle are on display. In the middle of the room there is a huge wooden table on which a map of the battlefield is drawn up, with the positions of the armies.

The 4 others are each dedicated to one of the countries involved in these battles, Egypt, England, Germany and Italy.

Outside the building is exposed the large military equipment: tanks, heavy artillery, vehicles ...

A pleasant hour walk awaits you unless you prefer the bus. To see: the irrigation Museum.

It's a small grave, 49 meters long, very deep. It received the body of Ramses I, founder of the 20th dynasty, and grandfather of Ramses II. It is thought that this tomb must have been larger, but the death of the king forced the architects to make do with what they had had time to dig; the present burial chamber was to be a first vestibule according to their original plan. The colours of this tomb are particularly well preserved. The reign of Ramses I was very short, less than two years.

It is one of the few places where you will find vast beaches free of charge in Egypt! You can also choose to pay for Mercury Beach or the beaches of the beaches, if you want more privacy.

The grave is 116 m long. It was begun by the brother of Ramses VI, Ramses V, who died early, and who preceded his brother by six years in this mausoleum. It recalls the walls of the tomb of Ramses III. The ceiling of the burial chamber, by its complexity inspired by the Book of the Earth, earned it the name "tomb of metempsychosis" by the scholars of Bonaparte. This book specific to the Ramses dynasty tells the story of the solar god's journey into the afterlife and the complexity of his hidden world. The two sarcophagi exist only in pieces.

The tomb of the second king of the ^20th dynasty, Seti ^I, to whom we owe some of the finest high-reliefs in Egyptian art, is a respectable size: 137 m deep. His tomb mirrors the other monuments erected during his reign. After a succession of three corridors, a 6-pillared hall adorns a tomb whose walls are richly decorated. The burial chamber boasts a sumptuous astrological ceiling inspired by the book of the afterlife, the Amdouat. The alabaster sarcophagus is now in the Sir John Soane Museum in London.

Sennefer was prince and administrator of the temple gardens of Amun during the reign of Amenophis III. A narrow staircase leads to the deep vault of his beautiful tomb. This tomb is also known as the Tomb of the Vines, as many of the ceilings are decorated with vines. Although the work lacks finesse, this tomb will seduce you with its irregular ceiling, with bunches of grapes hugging the hollows and bumps. The walls and pillars depict the prince and one of his wives, Senetnay.

The very fine tomb of the Vizier under Thoutmes III expresses, through its decorative motifs, the power and might of the official promoted to a high distinction. On the front wall, as you enter from the left, are depictions of various tribes (Syrians, Sudanese, Ethiopians, etc.), charged with tribute as a sign of submission, including exotic animals such as panthers, giraffes and monkeys. On the walls of the narrow chapel, remarkably precise scenes show Rekhmiré supervising his workers, as well as a funeral banquet featuring some very pretty guests!

Usirhat was a royal scribe under Amenophis II, and his tomb features the usual scenes. His tomb is located at the bottom of the Gournah hill, a position that reflected his social status. This monument represents one of the pinnacles of funerary art of the period, with its two famous scenes, that of the barbers and the chariot race. Both have been featured in numerous works on ancient Egypt. The tomb was open to the public for many years, and remains so today, albeit intermittently.

One of the finest tombs on the site. A high-ranking civil servant, Menna was scribe to the Lord of the Two Lands under Thutmose IV. His tomb is decorated with touchingly realistic rural scenes. Some scenes have been reproduced in art books. For example, a bad debtor is beaten by the scribe's men, and a young child carrying an antelope on his shoulders is touchingly lifelike, as is the cat snatching eggs from a nest. The statues of Menna and his wife Henouttaouy can still be seen at the back of this one.

Solitary and majestic, the mausoleum of Agha Khan III, buried in 1959 (2 years after his death), overlooks the Nile with its pared-down architecture, inspired by the Fatimid tombs of Cairo. Erected at the request of his wife Begum, whose house lies below, the ^48th Imam of the Ismailis (a dissident sect of Shiite Islam whose 4 million followers are mainly in Pakistan) rests here "in the name of a merciful and clement God", in a marble sarcophagus. The mausoleum is located on the other side of the Nile, which is particularly photogenic.

About a hundred tombs, including four underground ones, of great architectural beauty make up this funerary site. Some of the outer tombs have retained their elegant pillars, allowing archaeologists to learn more about the funerary rites of Alexandria. It is also known that the choice of burial was linked to the social status of the deceased and that children and adults received the same funeral treatment (burial, mummification, etc.)

If you follow the pavement path straight on through the sand, you'll come to a small temple from the Ptolemaic period, in fact a tomb from the ^4th century BC, that of Petosiris and his family. High priest of Thoth, Petosiris is said to have been a great religious reformer. On his death, he is said to have become the object of a cult himself.

His well-preserved tomb is well worth a visit, if only for its Hellenistic-style reliefs (on the right as you enter the vestibule). The guardians will not fail to suggest that you visit Isadora, a mummified young girl who is said to have drowned in the Nile. It's not a very pleasant sight.

Retracing your steps, turn left and head towards a sort of half-buried mastaba, to descend into crypts carved out of the rock.

You'll wander in semi-darkness along vast, perfectly ventilated corridors lined with niches in which thousands of baboon and ibis mummies have been found. This is hardly surprising, given that Hermopolis worshipped Thoth in both forms.

In 2018, new excavations uncovered over 40 well-preserved mummies in four Ptolemaic burial chambers (323 to 30 BC). 12 of these were children's, six were animals' and the rest were adult men and women. It would seem that they correspond to a middle-class family from the last pharaonic dynasty.

Scribe and astronomer of Amun under Thutmes IV, eighth pharaoh of the 18th dynasty. The first room is arranged as a kind of tiny museum. There are scenes of ploughing and duck hunting in papyrus thickets, as well as men, barefoot in the vat, treading grapes. These scenes were inspired by Nakht's property in the Nile Delta. The statue of the deceased is a copy; as for the original, it lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, the ship that transported it to the United States having sunk.

Mahmoud Eed, a Bedouin artist from Bawiti, presents traditional handicrafts and makes naive figurines. Inspired by the artist Badr from Sarafra, he shapes clay to represent life in the oasis. Dioramas about the region are also on display. A visit to his museum takes no more than 10 minutes. It is free, but if you want to leave something, or even buy a piece of work (the handmade silver jewellery could be a very nice souvenir gift) it will undoubtedly please him.

This grave is 76 m deep. Like that of his son Amenophis II, it is dug into the cliff escarpment. Designed on the same model, the father's tomb is less decorated than the son's. The burial chamber contains a series of graffiti representing the complete deities of the Book of Amdouat (740!) which must have preceded the work of the painter. It is the oldest tomb in the valley. Its funerary chamber is characterized by its cartouche shape. Its red quartzite sarcophagus is still in place, beautifully decorated.

Abou el-Kacem Chebbi, born in 1909 in Tozeur and died on October 9, 1934 in Tunis, is a Tunisian poet considered by some as the national poet of the country. Despite his early death, due to poor health, he published seven volumes of poetry, some of whose lines are now part of the national anthem of Tunisia. In this pleasant mausoleum paved with colorful mosaics, you will learn more about his life and read some of his poems in Arabic, but also in French.

Association created to promote the creative scene in Alexandria and support its young artists by offering a space for contemporary visual and performing arts. It is particularly keen to encourage the emergence of the underground art scene, which, like that of Beirut, is particularly fertile. Performances, workshops, exhibitions and a wide variety of events: its interactive program is aimed at a broad public. It's a place of culture, of cultures; a lively place, a vibrant place... A good place to meet Egyptian youth.