PREPARATIONS FOR PETRA AND LUXOR WITH PROFESSOR JEAN-PIERRE ISBOUTS FROM OUR HOME TOWN, SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA
Two of the most historical and important sites of early civilizations are on the horizon with Petra in Jordan and Luxor in Egypt. We have been to both including a travel experience of Brian’s when he was only 26 on a trip to the Middle East including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Israel only a few weeks before the 6 Day War in 1967. That complete and amazing story of “getting too close for comfort” can wait for another time, but part of it included sleeping in caves in Petra when there were no hotels, etc. in the area 43 years ago! We visited Petra in 2007 and will include a few pictures of that wonderful journey tomorrow. We also visited Egypt with a small group from Santa Barbara in 1996 for two weeks including a very memorable cruise on the Nile including 2 days in Luxor. We will not be returning to these two sites on this trip, but rather do some other exploring on our own and getting ready for our Virtuoso Voyager Club event in Alexandria and our big day in Israel with a private guide for the whole day and ending at the Crystal World Cruise Event that evening. Back to today, Prof. Jean-Pierre Isbouts is an author including a beautiful coffee table book with National Geographic, historian, and an award winning filmmaker.
Jean-Pierre delivered two very important lectures today including his first, “All Roads Lead to Petra – A virtual tour of the amazing sites of Petra, the leading city of Roman Arabia and the terminus for caravans from the East.” His big slide presentation was excellent and a great preparation for those going to Petra for the first time.
His second lecture was “Luxor, the Triumph of the New Kingdom. After the great upheaval of the Hyksos Revolt, Themes became the capital of the New Kingdom.” His slides gave us a great visual tour of the astonishing works built in Luxor and Karnak by leading Pharaohs from Hatshepsut to Rames II.” For those on the ship going to both of these most impressive and important destinations, they had better rest up tonight – both of these are long days and there is no day to rest in between!
CAPTAIN’S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY…..
“If you don’t have anything nice to say to someone, then you don’t know them well enough to say anything”.
The earliest known exploration of the Red Sea was conducted by Ancient Egyptians, as they attempted to establish commercial routes to Punt. One such expedition took place around 2500 BC, and another around 1500 BC. Both involved long voyages down the Red Sea.
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