Egypt February 2-17, 2025 |
|
Tuesday, February 4, 2025 - Free Day in CairoToday is a day at leisure, to get used to the time zone (and to have a buffer in case we experienced any flight delays). We slept for a full 12 hours, and awoke refreshed at 9:45 a.m. We live a relatively simple life at home, but sometimes when traveling, we like to splurge. That is the case here, where we are staying at The Four Seasons Nile Plaza.We went to breakfast at 10:30. We had a lovely extensive breakfast buffet. The staff were so friendly and attentive! One employee saw Craig walking with his cane and offered to assist him with getting food at the buffet. So thoughtful, even though Craig politely declined. We ate with a view of the Nile. We just happened to be looking around the dining room, and the manager thought that we were looking for him and came right over. The manager had a deadpan sense of humor. We asked for more coffee and he said no, and then started laughing. He was a riot. The breakfast buffet included fried halloumi, scrambled eggs, beef and chicken sausage, Egyptian pastry, blueberry muffins, toast, cheese, charcuterie, yogurt, etc. etc. There was also a station where you could get eggs, crepes, and French toast to order, but we stuck to the standard buffet today. The orange juice was amazing, and the coffee was very good as well. After we were done eating, they brought us the bill. We had thought that breakfast was included in the price of the room. It is, it just turns out that you have to sign for it anyway. When we had asked the manager to clarify this, he deadpanned, "We'll just double charge you when you leave." We went to the ATM inside the hotel. It has a feature that we have never seen before: you can deposit U.S. money and exchange it for Egyptian pounds. We didn't do that (we used our ATM card to withdraw money)m but it is quite handy, even for locals who get tipped in USD. We withdrew 4000 Egyptian pounds, which is around $80 USD. We went into the hotel gift shop as well...I wanted all the things! Golden cartouche necklaces, figures of Egyptian gods, a replica of King Tut's mask...everything was fixed price, and the guy working there was not pressuring us at all. It was very low key, and that is how we prefer our shopping experiences to be. But it was too early in the trip to know what we really wanted to buy, so after admiring all of the beautiful items, we headed back upstairs to our room.. We got back to the room at 12:30. The room had been made up and we went out onto our small balcony overlooking the Nile. The weather was cool and comfortable, 71 degrees and sunny. The humidity was extremely low; everything is very dry here. We couldn't find any menus or printed information about the hotel restaurants, and then we realized that it must be on the TV's welcome channel. We put on the TV and got info about the restaurants, and it said that their menus were on the Four Seasons app. So I downloaded the app and we looked at menus to see where we might like to eat dinner. We laughed that we were so old school that we were looking for printed books rather than relying on technology. We showered at around 4 p.m.m and I found that my hair dried almost immediately due to the extreme lack of humidity. We made a reservation at the hotel's Lebanese restaurant Byblos for 6 p.m. We would later learn that Byblos was the city in Lebanon where Osiris' dead body washed ashore in ancient Egyptian mythology, but more about that later. We watched the sun set from our balcony and heard the call to prayer from our room at around 5:40 p.m. We could see a cool round building which was lit up orange on the other side of the river, and it turned out to be the opera house. We went down to the floor which housed the restaurant and the pool. The restaurant had outdoor seating with gas heaters, as well as indoor seating. We hadn't brought sweaters, so we chose to eat inside. Dinner is usually eaten on the late side in Egypt, so at 6 p.m., we were the only ones at the restaurant. We were given guava mint juice. Craig ordered a Stella beer and I had a cosmo. I had falafel with tahini and hummus, and fatteh eggplant and hummus (fried eggplant, crispy pita bread, yogurt, boiled chickpeas, coriander, garlic, pomegranate, and herbed oil). Craig had halabi kebab (spiced minced lamb) with saffron rice and fries. We had a complimentary fruit plate for dessert. Everything was delicious. As our meal commenced, a few other diners showed up, some eating outside with the heaters, and others opting to eat indoors. When we got back to the room we had a toilet emergency; it came close to overflowing! We called the front desk and someone immediately came up to unblock it. It turns out that you can't flush toilet paper in Egypt. We are used to this in Latin America, but in this modern luxury hotel in Cairo, we hadn't even thought of it. Nothing was posted about not flushing paper, and nobody had warned us. The more you know... We went to bed early as we would have a busy day ahead of us. Tomorrow we head to the Giza Plateau (pyramids and sphinx) and the brand spanking new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM). Although it doesn't officially open until July 3, there are parts that are open as a preview, and we are able to go see what is open now. The realization finally kicked in that we had actually finally made it to Egypt, and we would start seeing these amazing sites tomorrow! |
 Breakfast, Four Seasons Nile Plaza  Room #905 Balcony, Four Seasons Nile Plaza  Sunset from Room #905 Balcony, Four Seasons Nile Plaza See all photos from February 4 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
