Hatshepsut Temple in Luxor is the scene of the murder crime in November 1997 when terrorists killed 62 people (most of them tourists). The temple is one the ancient monuments that spread across the ancient capital in the southeastern part of Egypt.
Nowadays, it’s one of the most-visited tourist attractions in the West Bank of the Nile River. Perhaps, out of the hundreds of tourists that visit this archaeological site everyday, only very few know its gruesome past. Our tour guide didn’t mention it but when I asked him about it, he seemed agitated and responded curtly, “This place is safe now.” That doesn’t really answer the question, right? My badness for being rude? \0xD83D\0xDE00
I didn’t come here to see the crime scene but I was intrigued about the Hatshepsut, the Queen Pharaoh.
By Alain – Full Story at Keep Calm and Wander
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Whenever we visit a new city, we like to find a great place to see the views.
Gay Paris is of course one of the world’s greatest cities–above all, one of its great cultural cities, with literature and art and architecture and fashion and cuisine and so on and so forth. But I think that Americans easily forget how great a gay city it is as well. They don’t call it “Gay Paris” for nothing!
Among other things, I think few people know that France eliminated its laws against sodomy in 1791, 212 years before the US Supreme court decided Lawrence v. Texas. This is why (or part of why) so many American and English gay people, such as Oscar Wilde or James Baldwin, went to live in Paris in the 19th and 20th centuries.
But Paris generally has an amazing gay tradition, and the list of gay greats who have lived there is endless, including Frenchmen such as Proust, Jean Cocteau, Genet, and Yves Saint Laurent and expats from many lands, such as Diaghilev, Nijinsky, and Cole Porter. It has a particularly fascinating Lesbian history, with Lesbian greats both French, such as Colette, and American, such as Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas.
So…just as is true with New York and London and Berlin, a gay history tour is a great way to visit gay Paris. In fact, gay history is such an important theme in Parisian history that it leads you to and through the main neighborhoods and museums, showing you a fascinating and relatable side of the city that a normal tour or guidebook would simply ignore.
In Luxor, the ancient Egyptian capital, archaeologists discovered 63 royal tombs at the Valley of the Kings. These pharaohs ruled the country in the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties. But, perhaps, the most famous discovery from here is the tomb of a Tutankhamen who ruled in the 18th dynasty.
Unlike Cairo, pyramids weren’t used here as a tomb for the Kings or Pharaohs. Instead, these royalties were buried in an elaborate, long, tunnel-like passage that goes deep down under at the valley. Nowadays, only three royal tombs are open to the public for viewing for a ticket price of one. Yes, we went down to all three but only one has left me in awe – the tomb of Rameses IV.
One of the things we absolutely loved about our visit to gay Philadelphia in October was the amazing amount of public art – murals and statues and the like.
Of course, we had to get a photo of the famous “Love” sculpture – and did you know there’s one in Spanish too?
But there is so much more to see scattered throughout the downtown core. One plaza is covered in giant pieces from various board games we loved as children. And walls all over the city are plastered with gorgeous murals, including the LGBT one on the side of the Center.
Here are some of our favorites!
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Sometimes we want to go to a resort and spend some time whether it is in the mountains or seaside or desert and other times we want to go to a destination just to enjoy that particular destination. Earlier this year we stayed at the HOTEL PATTEE in Perry, Iowa which is more or less in the middle of Iowa. Perry is actually located about 35 miles northwest of Des Moines and has a population of about 7,000. The very historical HOTEL PATTEE was built in 1913 and the interior is from the Arts and Crafts movement of that era and it is still the same. The lobby and all the rest of the interior of the hotel brings you back when grandeur was what it was all about.
If you are looking for a destination that delivers some quality beach time and great weather, then it’s hard to beat Spain’s Costa del Sol.
The term Costa del Sol refers to the stretch of coastline surrounding the city of Malaga – this region is one of Spain’s most popular tourist destinations.
The weather and the beaches are the key attractions, and there has been extensive development along the coastline to cater for the influx of international tourism.