Day 96 and we are in Alexandria, Egypt's second largest city. We have arrived on Easter Monday (for the Coptic Christians) and the city is bustling with families heading to the parks and beaches for picnics, just like home on a Bank holiday. We experienced a great day here; to me it was a city bursting with culture and colour. We journeyed through Mansheya Square, where we saw the bronze statue of Mohamed Ali the founder of modern Egypt, and then on to the Mos...

The sun was setting over the mountains of Israel as we left Jordan behind us and then Saudi Arabia coming up on our port side and Egypt on our starboard side as we headed, back down the Gulf of Aqaba, for Sharm El Sheikh. At Sharm El Sheikh we had a lazy, relaxing day sunbathing on the ship while others went ashore to 5 star hotels!? Then today, 15th April, we transitted the Suez Canal. So different to the Panama Canal with deserts as opposed to jungles, an...

The next four days were spent at sea, as we returned to The Arabian Sea and to the Gulf of Aden and through the straits of Bab El Mandeb into the Red Sea and to our next port, Safaga, Egypt. This is a commercial port but is the tourist port for day-trippers to Luxor and Karnak. As we had been there on a Nile cruise two years ago we opted for a jeep ride into the eastern desert to a Bedouin settlement. After a bumpy ride across moon-like landscape we had a warm w...