Europe Trip Pictures: October 2007

Trip Overview

3 continents, 31 countries (counting Vatican City & Monaco), 131 days

I took 7,500 pictures. The highlights are posted here. All pictures are either 922 x 692 or 692 x 922. So if your screen resolution is 1280x1024 or larger, then you should be fine on this page.

If you have a wide screen monitor or small resolution and aren't able to fit all of the souvenir picture (below) onto the screen, and if this is going to annoy you when looking through all the vertically-oriented pictures, then go to http://hawketravelsmallpics.blogspot.com The picture quality isn't as good, but at least you should be able to see the whole picture without scrolling up and down.

Send feedback, questions, or requests for more pictures of something specific to ShaneRobertHawke@gmail.com

My only two souvenirs from the trip - Papyrus painting from Egypt and a stein from Oktoberfest.

My route:

I started out by flying into Cairo (A). Spent two weeks in Egypt, then flew into Frankfurt (B) and followed that route into Turkey. From Istanbul (C) I flew to Athens (D), spent a week and a half doing Athens and the Cyclades Islands, then flew from Athens to Dubrovnik, Croatia (E). Followed that route (flying from Croatia to Italy instead of taking a ferry) until I got to Dublin (F). I ended the trip by flying into Munich (G) for five days of Oktoberfest.

New York (Layover)

I had a 12 hour layover at JFK Airport on the way to Cairo. Instead of hanging around the airport all day, I decided to take the subway to lower Manhattan.

Statue of Liberty

Ellis Island

The waterfront park

Ground Zero

NYSE on Wall Street

Egypt, Part 1

ALEXANDRIA

Pompey's Pillar. The only standing Roman ruin in Alexandria.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Built on the site of the ancient Library of Alexandria.

The library's planetarium. Looks like the Death Star.

Roman amphitheater ruins

Mosque by the boardwalk

CAIRO, ROUND 1

Typical Egyptian policeman

Mosque in the middle of downtown Cairo

Al-Azhar Mosque

A real Egyptian street market for locals. Won't find any souvenirs here.

Mosque of Sayyida Zeinab

Random mosque

Pyramid of Khufu (aka The Great Pyramid of Giza)

Entrance to the tomb. The walk to get to the tomb is more interesting than the tomb itself.

Pyramid of Khafre

All three pyramids. The pyramid on the far right is the Pyramid of Menkaure.

The standard "Look at me standing in front of something famous" picture

Camel ride around the back of the pyramids to the Sphinx

He looks like he's having a great time

Contiki caravan

The whole Giza Necropolis

The Great Sphinx

This is what everyone thinks of when they think of Egypt

Shot from the freeway headed to downtown Cairo

Another shot from the middle of Cairo

SOUTHERN EGYPT

Driving across the Aswan Dam

The unfinished obelisk at the stone quarry in Aswan. The obelisk cracked as they were carving it, so they just left it there.

That's the actual Sahara Desert

The Nile

The only crocodile we saw the whole trip

View from the top of a sand dune

Me & Mason

Really shouldn't have walked up in bare feet. Turns out Saharan sand is hot.

Random ancient ruin on the Nile

The Great Temple at Abu Simbel (Ramesses the Great)

Close-up with people for scale

No pictures allowed inside. This is as good as it gets.

The Small Temple at Abu Simbel (Nefertari)

The temple was in danger of being flooded when the Aswan Dam was built. So in the 1960s, the entire temple was carved up into blocks and relocated. This is a close-up of how it was carved up.