Close But No Shisha in Cairo
/Way back in March of this year we started planning our two week return visit to Egypt, with plans to spend a generous week each in just Cairo and Luxor. (Unlike our first visit.) At that time, Cairo’s new Grand Egyptian Museum was set for their grand opening on July 1st. We were confident that by our October 20th arrival we would center our entire week in Cairo with two visits to this splashy new museum masterpiece that was 23 years in the making at a cost of a billion dollars. Our confidence was misplaced and our plans were doomed.
That doesn’t happen very often—like never! But our luck, backed by our very careful planning, ran out on this one. GEM’s grand opening for the general public was delayed, yet again, until November 4th. It was 80% open for several weeks in September and October. 80% would have been fine with us.
But alas, the entire facility was closed for a few weeks preceeding the grand opening. We arrived in Cairo on October 20th. And we left Luxor on November 4th—the day of the opening.
We don’t smoke anything but cannabis but this was definitely one of those “close but no cigar”—in this case “shisha” moments.
apparently the entrance of the grand egyptian museum in giza, cairo EGYPT
We did, however, revisit the other two iconic museums in Cairo (above): The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (“the mummy museum”) and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (“the pink museum”) on famous El Tahrir Square, central stage for the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
