Past week's photos

Third visit to the pyramids. I realized looking at the Sphinx that I didn't know which came first--the statue or the riddle. It appears that the statue came first (built around 2600 BCE), but it seems a little ambiguous since the oldest sphinx imagery was found in Turkey, dating back to 9500 BCE, so it could have made its way to Greece before Egypt. The history and explanation of sphinxes is surprisingly vague. In any case, this view never gets old:

Below are some pictures of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik's palace, built around 1900 on Rhoda island. The island is south of Zamalek in the Nile.

The Nile by Rhoda Island:

Inside of Mar Girgis Greek Orthodox church in Coptic Cairo:

Typical downtown Cairo balcony:

And my new favorite shop in Coptic Cairo. Adel sells every variety of old camera along with lighters, clocks, and other antiques. Not a single one of them works.