Anchises in Cairo

Aeneas reached Carthage, where he fell in love with Dido, before continuing to Italy and founding Rome.  His father Anchises, whom he rescued from the burning city of Troy and who accompanied Aeneas on the first part of his travels, died peacefully in Sicily, never having reached the north coast of Africa with his son.  I’m now filling that gap, since my wife and I are in Egypt on a two-week tour organized by Road Scholar (formerly Elder Hostel).  We left on Sunday night and plan to return to New York in middle of the month. 

We arrived in Cairo on Monday afternoon and, after being taken to our hotel by the Road Scholar representative, ate dinner with some of the twelve or so participants.   Yesterday, after breakfast, we drove out to see the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, and the Solar Boat.  Today, we're to visit Dahshur, a necropolis of the Old Kingdom, and Memphis, as well as the Imhotep Museum in Saqqara, north of Dahshur, which displays archaeological finds from the site.  We'll be on our own this afternoon, but in the evening we're to hear a presentation by a member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, who will speak about "Islam Today."

A confession: actually, I’m writing this from New York.  We haven’t yet embarked for Egypt.  But from time to time I’ll be posting our itinerary as it now appears in the schedule, as if we had actually taken part in it, although of course right now those activities are in the future.   No doubt the schedule will be changed here and there, so my posts may not be entirely accurate.  After we return, I hope to present some reflections on our experience.


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