HURGHADA Red Sea Egypt

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Yesterday evening I came back from Hurghada at the Red Sea in Egypt where I had spent 2 weeks. This was the 4th time. Hurghada is nothing special, it was founded in the early 20th century, and since the 1980s has been continually enlarged by Egyptian and foreign investors to become the leading seashore resort on the Red Sea.

Holiday villages and hotels provide aquatic sport facilities for sailboarders, yachtsmen, scuba divers and snorkelers.Hurghada stretches for about 36 kilometres (22 mi) along the seashore, and it does not reach far into the surrounding desert. It is for Egyptian tourists from Cairo, the Delta and Upper Egypt, as well as package holiday tourists from Europe, lots of people from the Eastern countries like Hungarians, Poles, Bulgarians etc and also a lot of Russian speaking people. There were languages I had never heard ! The rest were guests from western countries like the UK, Holland, Italy and Germany.

Until a few years ago it was a small fishing village. Today Hurghada counts 248,000 inhabitants and is divided into three parts: Downtown (El Dahar) is the old part; Sekalla is the city center, and El Memsha (Village road) is the modern part. Sakkala is the relatively modest hotel quarter.

It's the ideal place for spending real holidays not for visiting the Egyptian tresors. Sunshine is guaranteed the whole year, the cooler months are January and February with sometimes thunderstorms.

I stayed in the Hotel Sunrise Holidays Resort, which is a very nice hotel and would suit for all ages from 0 to 90 ! The only problem I had was that they didn't have free Internet Connection and I had to pay 50 € for a week using my own laptop ! One hour was 5 € ! Exhorbitant prices for a 5* hotel and not very customer friendly ! This was the first time it happened to me in a hotel ! 5* in Egypt is not the same as 5* in European countries. They are real palaces, but of course you don't have the same service, for only 1200 € flight included and all inclusive you can't expect miracles. But the rooms are clean and there is everything you need. I really have spent very nice holidays.

Hurghada by night ! Lots of tourists, lots of shops and a lot of animation

The hotel entrance

around the beach

Inside of the hotel

A belly dancer show

and that's what I see outside today ! That's my world again !

MY WORLD - The Gaasbeek Castle in autumn

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I had read that there was a dragon exposition at the Gaasbeek castle and as the weather was so unusually beautiful I went there expecting big dragons all over the park.

It turned out that the dragon expositon was inside the castle and taking photos was not allowed.

So I walked around the park and castle on this warm October day.

on the way to the castle,

from far I could see the ponds

On these mirrors the history of the castle is explained and also the place were you are.

The castle of Gaasbeek

walls all around

A little house in the park

There were lots of chestnuts in the park and people were collecting them

The heavy rain of the last weeks has left its traces

You need good shoes to walk down these steps to the ponds

There are also grapes growing

on the way back

into this nice restaurant

where we could sit outside

a special guest

and supervisors

SAND SCULPTURE EXPOSITION - Blankenberge

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End August I went to the Sand sculpture exposition in Blankenberge at the Belgian coast. In two hours I visited 40 countries on six continents ! Africa, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Greece, Holland, India, Japan, Morocco, Norway, Peru, Russia, Spain, Turkey, the Far East, and the United States

An international team of artists from the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium had realized these amazing sculptures

In total 100, man-made, wonders of the world were sculpted of which 18 North American, 45 European, 20 Asian, 9 Australian and 8 African. The order of these wonders is random: from architectural to historical, from old to contemporary.

You can read more about the exposition here

As you do in Blogworld when you visit your Blogfriends, you jump from one continent to the other, from one country to the other and from one city to the other in the whole world. That's what I did here in no particular order.

The first part was outside Europe

The entrance. As it was 3 days before the end of the exposition it was very crowed for a wednesday !

The plan with the different continents to see

The entrance

I found myself in Australia

and then in the USA

I admired the details of the Cowboy's gun and saddle

In Cuba I saw how cigars are rolled

and in Argentina the famous tango

the "skinny" Sumos fought in Japan

and the Indian gods were just amazing ! What an artwork

The sculpture with impressed me the most was the one representing Israel and Palestine in one sculpture. It was the Wailing Wall with on one side the Jews and on the other side the Palestinians. The expression of the faces were so real !

I was a little disappointed about Petra in Jordan, because I had been there as you can see here

Aborigens

I met a canadian policeman (?)

and came out of the huge tent to find myself in Egypt

The Taj Mahal

The Chrysler Building

The cathedral St. Basil in Moscow

Chichen Itza, the old Mja town

The Great Wall of China

besides the Opera in Sidney

Acropolis in Athen

Then I entered the tent which contained the European countries and cities

Here is Holland with Amsterdam and its canals

Germany, with the Dom of Cologne and the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin. I have to protest about the German couple, that's not German that's Bavarian, I have never seen my father in a short leather trouser and my mother in a Dirndl ! I don't know who invented such a costum to represent Germans.

Italy represented by the Romans and the pope (what a nice mixture)

The Big Ben was also there

and the Russian dolls (Matriochkas)

Moscow

A dancing Kosak

A belly dancer

Crocodiles, how could the artist do that with sand ?

and then was the End of this very interesting Exposition

Outside was a café where we fell on the chairs and had a coffe and a hot Brussels wafel !