- Getting ready to hit the road!
- Some thoughts on Hong Kong…
- A day in Danang and Hue, Vietnam
- Saigon River and Saigon, Vietnam
- Siem Reap and Temples, Cambodia
- The Floating Village — Kompong Phluk, Cambodia
- Phnom Penh and the road to Sihanoukville, Cambodia
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Day 2 in Bangkok — Ayutthaya, Thailand
- Singapore
- Langkawi Island, Malaysia
- Phuket, Thailand — or sort of…
- New Delhi, India
- Agra and the Taj Mahal
- The road to — and Jaipur, India
- India — a few closing thoughts.
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates
- Oman (The Sultanate of)
- Luxor, Karnak, and the Valley of the Kings, Egypt
- Petra, Jordan
- Sharm el Sheik and St. Catherine’s Monastery, Egypt
- Cairo and Giza, Egypt
- Egypt — Some final thoughts…
- Zooming around Israel
- Bodrum, Kusadasi, and Ephesus, Turkey
- Corfu, Greece
- Dubrovnik and Zadar, Croatia
- Venice, Italy — the last hurrah!
Sharm el Sheik is at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula. It was a sleepy little town for many years, but now has become a huge resort area boasting some of the best diving in the world. While I was very tempted to take advantage of that opportunity, I also wanted to visit St. Catherine’s Monastery, located almost exactly in the middle of the Sinai.
You may have never heard of St. Catherine’s. It is the oldest Christian monastery in the world and sits at the base of Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. This Greek Orthodox monastery was started in the 4th Century A.D. to preserve the holy site that includes the burning bush and the well where Moses first met his wife. It was dedicated to St. Catherine, a martyr from Alexandria, Egypt. The monastery is still in operation and it has a collection of texts and icons dating back to the 4th Century that is second only to the Vatican’s collection. It was truly amazing to look at these works, which were all displayed in glass cases. One funny story though – I went to the gift shop to get a book and started talking with the monk who ran it. He noticed my GoPro camera and seemed to know more about it than I did. So much for the monastic life!
One other note about the town where St. Catherine’s is located – it turns out that this was a secret meeting place where Anwar Sadat and Menachim Begin met on-and-off over several months to put together the Egyptian/Israeli peace treaty that was ultimately signed with President Carter in the US.
While this trip involved yet another 3+ hour bus ride, it was actually enjoyable. It seemed that the terrain changed every few miles – from granite mountains, to red rock formations and sand, to white sandstone and powder white sand, and back to granite mountain formations. We also passed our fair share of Army/Police security stops, as well as two multi-national force bases that continue to monitor the peace between Egypt and Israel. By the way, I guess I should mention that our buses always went in caravan, with armed security guys onboard, a police escort (sometimes), and a spare empty bus in the event one should be needed. It seemed like overkill, but who knows??!!
Nearing the entrance to the monastery. We were driven up the hill in these old school Peugeots — including a 504 just like my old one. Talk about nostalgia!
This entry was posted in Cruising, Egypt, Travel