An Empty Abydos Temple, Egypt and a missing highway!

Last week I had the great pleasure to spend the day in Abydos, Egypt. This is the site of the Cenotaph Temple of Seti 1 and also his son Ramses 2.

Outside Seti 1 temple

For me, its a magical place and no other temple has the same spiritual feeling as this one. For the egyptologist tourists amongst us, its wonderfully preserved with the most exquisite reliefs on the walls.

Seti 1 temple

Ramses 2 temple
Humanised Djed Pillar

The walk across the desert to the smaller Cenotaph Temple of Ramses 2 brings us to a more ruined temple, but with such wonderful colours it is hard to leave.





Our journey began in the early morning with a drive up the East Bank road, through Qena heading towards the barrage  bridge at Naga Hammadi.  However, things did not go quite as planned. Our drive to Naga Hammadi was without incident, but at Naga Hammadi, things changed.

On the track to the new bridge
The old bridge is in the background

They have built a new bridge over the River Nile here, to replace the ageing barrage bridge. Ok, great! A new bridge to cross, and from a distance it looked like a wonderful bridge! But how to get there?
The only road was a small track running alongside the river and the police directed us along that track. So we bumped along, wondering how the big tour coaches and articulated lorries coped with it. Not to mention the people who live alongside this track. I imagine it was a very peaceful place to live, but it is obvious that the track will be widened and the houses will be demolished and these people will lose their land and their homes.

After 10 minutes we arrived at the new bridge.

There is small evidence that there will be a new access road to the bridge, but it is not there yet, just a sandy track leads us onto the bridge itself.  At that point we could not see the other side of the bridge but as we drove over the brow of the bridge, um.......... the road stopped after the end of the asphalt of the bridge. Another track leading to a t-junction.  Left or right? Toss a coin?  We spot a few men in the distance to the left, so we head that way to ask directions.  Not a good egyptian trait, asking directions is admitting they don't know something. But they send us on our way, another t-junction and take a right. But......... a young man on a motorbike is frantically indicating that we follow him........ to the left.  A decision is taken to take the right that the older man told us to take.

I have no idea where we ended up, but the villages that we passed through were full of confused faces at the "tourists" driving through their village.

But eventually we found the "high"road and quickly arrived in Abydos and had a wonderful day wandering in peace and quiet.