Egypt Trip - Day 1 - The Great Pyramids of Giza

Quote of the Post: "Traveling gives ideas to living, understanding and innovating the things better all around you up to some extent." - Quote about Traveling - Sachin Gupta
After a long time, the trip to Egypt finalized. We started on Friday eve and landed at the Cairo International airport where Swine flu just knocked the door. We choose Best Way Travel for travel agency and they welcomed us at the airport itself, from where we proceed towards our hotel.
Our first day morning started with the illusive glimpse of the great Pyramids from our hotel room window. We just got prepared for our journey in Egypt and had breakfast. We just reached one of the greatest place in the world in 10 mins. It was the peerless place and deserves to be in the Top 7 wonders of the world - The Great Pyramid of Giza. Today, the only ancient world wonder that still exists is the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Sometimes you expect more and got less, you feel a bit cramped; but here it was reversed. We feel great and enjoyed here as we didn't feel the humid and hot as we were expecting. Soon we reached at the 3 Pyramids view location. Here people were trying to have some innovative photographs. We also joined and have some. Then we had the camel ride in the desert of Pyramids. They lead us to the point where we have 6 pyramids and 9 pyramids (3 almost broken) views.

Giza is the location of the Pyramid of Khufu (also known as the "Great Pyramid" and the "Pyramid of Cheops"), another somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre (or Kephren), and the Pyramid of Menkaure (or Mykerinus), along with a number of smaller satellite edifices known as "Queen's pyramids", and the Great Sphinx. Then we follow our guide to the largest monolith statue in the world, The Great Sphinx of Giza, a statue of a reclining lion with a human head. The overall majestic scene was really adorable which have Pyramids in the back of great Sphinx. Then we moved to the Papyrus institute, where we saw a lot of famous Egyptian paintings. Some of them having Egyptian hieroglyphs. The "Balance of life" "Family Tree" "Good Luck sign" and "Egyptian Calender" were the famous ones.

After too much exercise so far, its time for lunch. We found Pizza hut just in front of Sphinx gate.We found eye catching location and I couldn't control my fingers to have some Pizza hut ad photographs.

Later on we proceed towards the Egyptian Museum, Museum of Egyptian Antiquities with the most extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities in the world. In the way, we visited one flower cotton collection shop. Snaps & Videos were strictly prohibited inside the museum. The museum contains Royal Mummy room, Mummification process representation, Animal mummy room, and the many treasures of King Tutankhamen along with his gold collection. The remains of many famous Pharaohs are stored in the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. The museum was so huge, that it will took almost a day to visit.

Later on we move to Khan-el-Khalili market for some souvenirs and other stuff. Here I have another refreshing Hibiscus juice. The nearby mosque was another attraction for the locals & visitors. Now, our clock indicated that soon the Light and Sound show will be started at the great pyramids as per our schedule. They have different shows in different languages. We were just on-time so we got the front seats as well.

You can see the show as per the language choice and time availability for the better management of your Egypt trip. This was the best time in the whole day, as the breezy air was flowing all around. We enjoyed this time a lot.It was an eye-relaxing and ear-soothing , overall a fabulous laser show. The pyramids seems lovely along with Sphinx when it enlightens with an array of colors. Later on we back to our hotel after dinner, as we have a tiring day, and need a good sleep for the next day schedule.

Enjoy the next - Egypt trip - Day 2 and Egypt trip - Day 3.

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Egypt Day 2 - City of Alexandria and Nile River Cruise Trip

We started our second day journey along with the Cairo-Alexandria desert road. In the way we have the chance to see the smart village in Cairo. Major IT & other company offices (as we saw Oracle, Microsoft, Intel, Exceed offices etc) can be seen. It took around 3 hrs from Cairo to Alexandria city.

Our first stop was the beautiful Montazah palace. The royalty can be seen, as the king has the tea room and kitchen at the different locations from the palace and it has connecting underground tunnels to it. I was not expecting that there would be such a greener place in Egypt. The swim area is connected to mediterranean sea and the garden all around adds more beauty to it. This place is the picnic spot for many locals, and the nearby beach is another attraction for tourists.

Our next destination was Bibliotheca Alexandria (Latin for “the Library of Alexandria”) library, a major library and cultural center situated just near the Alexander mediterranean sea road. The splendid and magnificent views from inside and outside win our heart. The local guide lead us with the brief introduction of the grand library. Bibliotheca Alexandrina maintains the only copy and external backup of the Internet Archive in the world with a mirror. The eye-catching architecture also holds a conference center; specialized libraries for the blind, for young people, and for children; three museums; four art galleries; a planetarium; and a manuscript restoration laboratory etc. The library architecture consists of a tilted circular disk surrounded by water, representing a sun in the Mediterranean horizon, is a symbol for enlightenment and knowledge. The walls are of gray Aswan granite, carved with characters from 120 different human scripts.

Later on, we proceed to Citadel of Qaitbay, an important part of the fortification system of Alexandria. It was erected on the exact site of the famous Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is situated at the entrance of the eastern harbour on the eastern point of the Pharos Island.

Then we visited nearby El-Mursi Abul Abbas Mosque. This mosque is considered as the old landmark and located in the Anfoushi neighborhood of Alexandria. Many other mosques can be found in this area. Now its time to return back to Cairo. We saw Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Alexandria) on our way. The tomb is located across the Alexandria sea-road. We had the Phala-phal and burger as the quick lunch. We also have a chance to see the train in the city of Alexandria, Egypt. It was too crowd while returning till we entered again in the Cairo city.

Now we have our awaited Nile river cruise dinner along with the Oriental Show and Belly Dancing. It was an eve on the longest river in the world - Nile River. Sightseeing on the Nile river cruise was pleasant and relaxing. It was approx 3 hours stop. As the sun was setting, it seems that Cairo city was awaken with more lightnings and views of the both ends of the river was soothing.This was the fantastic place to enjoy, as watching the twinkling lights of Cairo and having dinner at night on the Nile river cruise along with belly dancing and oriental show. Later on, we return back to Pyramid view hotel.

Enjoy the next - Egypt trip - Day 3.

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Egypt Trip - Day 3 - Old Cairo City

On the third consecutive day, we enjoyed the Pyramids from our hotel window. As We have to catch the flight on the last day eve itself. So with good sense, we checked-out from the hotel in the morning itself.

We started our tour with the entry into Coptic Cairo city area. We have a chance to quick visit to Babylon Fortress, the Coptic Museum, the Hanging Church, the Greek Church of St. George and many other Coptic churches and historical sites in this area.

Coptic museum holds the largest collection of Egyptian Christian artifacts in the world. The Hanging church (Saint Virgin Mary's Coptic Orthodox Church) is one of the oldest church in Egypt. It is named due to its location above a gatehouse of Babylon Fortress. It can be seen from a place inside the church. It is believed that the Holy Family (Child Jesus, Virgin Mary, and Saint Joseph) visited this area and stayed at the site of Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church (Abu Serga).

Later on we visited the nearby market for some Egypt key-rings, souvenirs and other stuff. Then we progressed towards the grand Cairo Citadel (The Saladin Citadel of Cairo), another most popular tourist destination. But still we have some time left to spare.

From here our driver and guide move us towards the Muqattam hill for a spectacular view of Cairo as the bonus place. If you have open eyes, you can have panoramic view to the stretched city with some sky crappers, along with great Pyramids and the Nile river in your coverage. The views from the hill were spectacular. Being the afternoon, and city being polluted and dusty day, The pyramids may not be pretty visible in the photographs.

Now its time to back to Cairo International airport. While returning we saw a pyramid-shaped monument in Nasr City, Cairo. This is known as "Unknown Soldier Memorial". This was just near the Cairo International Stadium. Finally we fly back to Larnaca (Cyprus) within our booked bird. We enjoyed the best of Egypt within 3 days as much as possible. It couldn't be better than this. The whole trip will remain like a unforgettable tour for all of us. Thanks to Ayu who insisted me to visit it.

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How to add favicon to your website

Quote of the post: "Favicon is the little logo that creates the image of a website for the internet surfers." - Quote about website - Sachin Gupta (Remember 'g' for google and 'Y!' for yahoo)

Before writing about how to create and add favicons (favorite icons or small logo for your site) to your website or blogger or word press domain. Just a few words about favicon, incase you don't know.
What is a Favicon?
Notice the red “Y!” symbol that appears in the left-most area of the address bar in Internet Explorer graphic below. I know you are familiar with it. Yup, that’s Yahoo’s favicon. These favicons (favorites icons), sometimes called “bookmark icons,” appear after adding a website with a favicon to the favorites menu in Internet Explorer and certain other browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Chrome etc.

Favicons also appear in the favorites menu after a page is added and loaded in the history as well. Anyone who’s surfed the Internet and bookmarked sites of interest has noticed favicons showing up in the favorites menu like this:

Creating a favicon:
A favicon should be 16 X 16 pixels with 16 colors and the file name should be favicon.ico. IconEdit32 is a good freeware program that allows you to create favicons as well as icons of other sizes and color depths. IrfanView is an excellent freeware image viewer that supports the icon (.ico) image format. You can use it to shrink one of your regular images to a 16 X 16 size, then decrease the colors to 16 and save as a “.ico” file. Keep in mind, if you don’t save it as “favicon.ico,” it may not work. Also remember, don’t just shrink an image to icon size and rename it with a “.ico” file extension. That won’t work either because it’s not a real icon file.

Uploading a Favicon on your website:
Method 1: Simply upload the file, favicon.ico to the root web directory of your hosted website with your favorite FTP program, Microsoft FrontPage, Dreamweaver MX or whatever. Make sure your favicon file is named “favicon.ico.” When someone bookmarks your site with a browser that supports favicons, your favicon will appear and will be stored in history as well. Alternatively, you can edit this code between the (x)HTML tags accordingly:

Method 2: I don't like 'Method 1' because it doesn't support on various browsers, and supports mainly static favicons. Rather I would prefer the easist way that supported most of the browsers and also supports animated favicons. For this you just have to search for 'Favicon hosting sites' and select or upload your own favicon. Copy and paste the generated code to the below section:
Layout -> Edit HTML -> Edit Template -> Put the code between (x)HTML tags accordingly:

That's it . You now have a distinct icon of your own blog or domain when someone bookmarks your website. You can even edit the favicons as well according to your choice.
There are many other sites, that generate and host favicons. Some of them are:
Iconj Animated Favicon
http://www.favicon.cc/
Favicon generator
Webscript Favicon generator
Testing of your new Favicon:

Typically when you save your template and reload it, you should be able to see the new favicon. But occasionally there may be settings in your browser that may prevent your favicon from showing up, so you may need to reload or clear your cache in order to see it right away. Now I am able to see my animated favicon on following browsers:

Mozilla

Chrome
Internet Explorer

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Petra Tou Romiou

The Petra Tou Romiou (Rock of the Greek), or the Rock Of Aphrodite (Rock of Romios, Aphrodite's Rock), is a scenic place, located off the sea-shore along the old Limassol-Pafos road. It has been regarded since ancient times as the birthplace of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and fertility. It's one of the most popular tourist spot, for its magnificent view of the sea, and more famously the birth place of Aphrodite.

It is said that here is the rock from which Aphrodite mythically arose from the foaming sea. There are two large rocks in the sea, set against the white cliffs above and the turquoise of the Mediterranean below. The beach is shingly but the setting is spectacular. The scene has been a source of inspiration for many poets and painters, the most famous

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result being Boticelli's Birth of Venus;

now on display in Florence Italy at Uffizi Gallery, the painting depicts the light wind of the Zephyrs bringing Aphrodite ashore inside a shell to Petra tou Romiou. (Picture of painting depicts)

There is a nearby restaurant, and a souvenir shop in the Tourist Pavilion where you can park your car on the uphill side of the road near the shop. Pedestrian access to the beach is via an underpass. From here you can admire the sight of the colors of the sea. Being a pebbled beach, people don't swim usually. The place is best to adore the sun-rise and sun-set, that makes it more beautiful.

People used to climb on the rock itself, and overlook the waves arose against it. I would say this is a must visit place in Cyprus. It is just some km away from a seaside village - Pissouri. I have been to this place many times, and each time I came here, It feels more beautiful. Some people often confused it with 'Baths of Aphrodite'. But Baths of Aphrodite is approx 70 km away from here. You can also roam around a nearby seaside village - Pissouri.

My jump snap is 500 Euros cost. Don't ask me; ask my friends.

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Pissouri - A seaside village

If you are thinking of visiting a sea-side village in Cyprus. Come to Pissouri. The place is very near to Rocks of Aphrodite. It is situated between Limassol and Pafos. It is specially the favorite place for British people. If you are driving from Limassol, you have to traverse across a hill tunnel.

The panoramic views from village and its edges are spectacular. The village square is the hub of village life with the coffee shop at its heart. The local tavernas serve up delicious local food and on summer evenings you may find the weekly “Cyprus night” somewhere in Pissouri, a lively and popular treat of traditional dancing, music and food.

Just near the village square, you will find a church, that is famous for its wooden-carved icon stand, which is a real work of art. Pissouri seems to evolve rapidly, following the trends of the globalization and global investments.

Pissouri is also famous for its 'on the edge of heaven' walks. You can watch out the fabulous flora and fauna of the Pissouri area, including migratory birds, bats, information about the snakes of the area, see the many indigenous orchids and wild flowers. The views are soothing to eye and will be stored to your's favourite in your disk.

If you are interested in golf, riding or tennis or dream wedding in Cyprus :-) Aphrodite hills is not so far, for your luxury and elegance time.

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