Your questions: Is it safe to travel by train in Egypt?
S. Pinto, Lalor, Vic
It's perfectly safe to travel by train. Most cruises begin in Luxor, south of Cairo, and as the home of the Valley of the Kings, Karnak and Luxor temples and the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut, the city makes an ideal starting point. Plan to stay at least three nights in Luxor. Nile River cruises between Luxor and Aswan aboard the larger vessels generally take three days, which allows for several stops at significant sites along the way. Another option is a dahabiya cruise. These are two-masted sailing vessels with modern facilities and they travel more slowly, generally four to five days for the Luxor-Aswan trip. They vary in size but eight to 12 cabins is typical. Dahabiyas can anchor anywhere along the banks of the Nile and this allows you to explore villages and farmlands as well as the significant temples along the river. If you want to relax and watch the scenery glide by at a slow pace, a dahabiya is ideal. In Cairo, beside the pyramids and the sphynx, don't miss the new Grand Egyptian Museum, the Khan El-Khalili Bazaar, Coptic Cairo, the Salah El Din Citadel and the Gayer-Anderson Museum.
My husband is unable to fly and we would like to experience Uluru. Are there any bus tours that cover Uluru and Coober Pedy that depart from Adelaide or Darwin and can cater for a mobility scooter? We are only interested in an organised tour.
S. Harrold, Albert Park, Vic
AAT Kings has a four-day Outback Explore tour from Uluru to Adelaide that takes in Coober Pedy. The company advises 'Collapsible, pushable wheelchairs can be accommodated in coach lockers. Please note that motorised wheelchairs/scooters cannot be accepted'. You need to check with AAT Kings to make sure this trip is going to meet your needs. You would also need to arrange your travels to Uluru with another bus operator, and this is possible from either Adelaide or Darwin to Alice Springs and then on to Uluru. Greyhound Australia can get you to Alice Springs and AAT Kings offers transfers from Alice Springs to Uluru.
I am interested in art nouveau architecture and have heard Riga, Latvia is an ideal destination. What other cities in the vicinity are good for architecture tours from the first quarter of the 20th century?
A. Morris, Dingley Village, Vic
Prague is another city with outstanding examples of art nouveau architecture. In Old Town Square, the facade of the Prague City Insurance Company is one example, while Parizska is a grand boulevard with many buildings richly embellished with the architectural flourishes of art nouveau. One of the most exultant expressions of the style is the Grand Hotel Europa on Wenceslas Square. At the time the hotel was built in the early 1900s, new techniques in fashioning metal and glass had allowed the twining motifs of art nouveau to find expression in balconies, galleries and windows and the Hotel Europa takes them to her heart with a facade and an interior lavishly embellished with scrolls, wreaths, canopies and calligraphy. The style reaches its apex in Municipal House, close to Wenceslas Square, which has been renovated to reveal the full glory of its exquisitely detailed art nouveau exterior. The ground floor of the building houses a cafe and a restaurant, where the lamps are especially fine representations of the style. From the foyer, opposing staircases descend to more cafes, bars and galleries where tiled panels, lift shafts and even woodwork are executed faithfully in the same style.
My partner (70s) and I (60s) are thinking about a trip to Puglia, flying with Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, spending two or three days there and then on to Bari. We don't wish to drive, would Bari be a good base for day trips?
D. Swift, Erskineville, NSW
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Courier-Mail
7 days ago
- Courier-Mail
I took a coach tour of Tasmania, now I see why it's a growing trend
Don't miss out on the headlines from Lifestyle. Followed categories will be added to My News. With another's hand on the wheel and your itinerary mapped out, a fully guided coach tour can be the epitome of worry-free travelling. It's already decided, to a large degree, where you will step off, what you'll see, where you will rest your head and who you will meet. In 2023, almost 50,000 people visited Tasmania on an organised coach tour, an increase of 34 per cent on 2019, so it clearly has its attractions. It may sound regimented, but the reality is the best coach tours take the focus away from the tedium of planning and the hassle of driving, freeing you to focus on the destination itself. On a five-day AAT Kings tour of Tasmania's east coast, I discover more about Tasmania and its people than on any other of my numerous visits to the island. On the coach They are the glamour vehicles on our roads – those large sleek coaches with panoramic tinted windows, reclining seats, wi-fi, on-board washrooms and USB charging stations. Inside, these luxury coaches are as comfortable as they look. Best of all, their height gives you an elevated view of the scenery. Coach touring also makes economic sense. Car hire can be expensive and the island state deceptive for the first-time visitor. The distance between destinations may be short but the roads, in part, can be narrow and winding and there are several occasions on this trip from Launceston to St Helens to Bicheno, Port Arthur and finally, Hobart, that I am glad not to be driving. Coach tours are also kinder to the planet. A typical coach tour produces 87 per cent less emissions than if passengers travel the same distance by car. AAT Kings driver Tom knows Tasmania's roads like the back of his hand. Picture: Sue Preston Choosing the right tour It's important to put some thought into selecting the tour that's right for you. AAT Kings' tours of Tasmania offer First Choice tours with accommodation in premium hotels, lodges and eco-resorts, more two-night stays with later starts, most meals with wine included and exclusive Be My Guest Experiences. Alternatively, Best Buys tours provide centrally located, comfortable accommodation, and don't have as many inclusions. These tours, which always include breakfast and some other meals, will suit those who enjoy more flexibility and free time. On this tour we are in modern well-equipped hotels such as the Best Western in Launceston and the Mövenpick Hotel in Hobart, as well as an attractive seaside hotel, Beachfront, in Bicheno, and Iron Creek Bay, a working farm with alpacas and other animals in Sorell. Feeding the alpacas at Iron Creek Bay Farm. Picture: Sue Preston What we see My fellow travellers, aged from their 20s to their 70s, are charmed by a stroll to Cape Tourville Lighthouse overlooking the majestic Freycinet National Park, the chance to explore the historic town of Richmond and a tour of the Port Arthur convict settlement. We visit Bridestowe Lavender Estate, the world's largest privately owned lavender farm, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors during the annual blooming season in December and January. While the fields produce perfume-grade lavender oil it's a lavender-stuffed heat pack purple bear called Bobbie we find in the gift shop that has brought Bridestowe international fame. Chinese model and actor Zhang Xinyu triggered a craze when she posted a photo of herself with the bear on social media. Bears flew off the shelf as Chinese tourists demanded their own Bobbie. Bridestowe Lavender Estate, at Nabowla. Picture: Jamie Douros & Camille Helm/Tourism Tasmania In the heart of the picture-book historic town of Richmond, with its beautiful 1820s Georgian buildings, we find a museum dedicated entirely to poo. Before you poo-poo the idea, Pooseum is an altogether fascinating science museum focused on everything you can learn about animals from their droppings. Our last day on the road is at the Port Arthur Historic Site, home to most of the 75,000 convicts sent to Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land as it was then known. Upon entry you can pick up a playing card, part of the so-called Lottery of Life. By matching your card to a drawer in the Port Arthur Gallery, you find a name for your convict, his criminal history, an account of his prison life and his eventual fate. Paupers' Depot at Port Arthur historic site. Your travel director On any organised coach tour it is the travel director who is the star of the show and who really enriches your experience. He/she is the pin that holds everything together, from everyday logistics to keeping everyone happy, well-fed and well-informed. Our seasoned travel director, Carolyn Tipper, is a born storyteller. She regales us with interesting anecdotes about even the most unassuming of towns – along with the best place to buy a curried scallop pie in Tasmania (hint – it's in Richmond) and the best things to see and do when the coach sets you down in the next town for an hour or so of free time. Richmond is known for its picturesque bridge - and scallop pies. Picture: Tourism Tasmania The places you go All the places we visit and the experiences we enjoy on this tour are hand-picked after considerable research and personal visits. And itineraries constantly evolve, so cultivating local friendships is important to AAT Kings, along with supporting local suppliers and operators. 'These are people who are very precious to us and we want to support their businesses,' Tipper says. Chief executive Ben Hall admits to going 'undercover' recently, taking his two young daughters with him on an AAT Kings coach tour to get a deeper understanding from the guests' perspective. 'For me, it really showed the importance of refining our approach and finding new ways to enhance the guest experience.' The writer was a guest of AAT Kings , which has a number of Tasmanian guided holidays. The five-day East Coast Highlights tour starts at $2385 per person twin share. Other tours range from seven to 13 days. Originally published as I took a coach tour of Tasmania, now I see why it's a growing trend
News.com.au
15-07-2025
- News.com.au
Egypt grand museum delay puts tourism hopes on hold
In the shadow of the Grand Egyptian Museum, souvenir shop owner Mona has been readying for the tourist boom she hoped the long-awaited opening would bring -- now once again out of reach. "I had bet everything on this opening," she told AFP from her shop, just steps from the iconic pyramids of Giza, which the much-anticipated museum overlooks. Originally scheduled to fully open this month, the museum was expected to attract up to five million visitors annually, fuelling optimism across Cairo's battered tourism sector. "We planned our entire summer and fall packages around the museum opening," said Nadine Ahmed, a 28-year-old agent with Time Travel tours. "But with group cancellations, refunds and route changes, we've lost tens of thousands of dollars." Though parts of the museum have been open for months, the main draw -- the treasures of Tutankhamun -- will remain under wraps until the official launch. Less than three weeks before its July 3 opening, the government announced another delay, this time pushing the landmark event to the final quarter of the year. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly cited regional security concerns and the desire to host an event of "global scale". - Decades in the making - The vast museum, two decades in the making, has faced repeated delays -- from political upheaval and economic crises to the Covid-19 pandemic. Ahead of the expected launch, Mona, who asked to be identified by her first name only, took out a loan to renovate her store and stock up on goods inspired by the museum's collection. A few streets away, Mohamed Mamdouh Khattab, 38, prepared months in advance, hiring and training extra staff and expanding his inventory. "The opening of the museum is a key milestone," said Khattab, who owns a sprawling bazaar of handcrafted jewellery and ancient replicas. "It's a project that should have been launched a long time ago," said the vendor, whose family has been in the industry since the 1970s. Tourism accounts for about 10 percent of Egypt's workforce, but the sector has struggled -- from the fallout of the 2011 Arab Spring to militant attacks and the Covid shutdown. Still, signs of recovery have emerged: Egypt welcomed 3.9 million tourists in the first quarter of 2025, up 25 percent from the same period last year -- itself a record. - Fragility - At a Giza papyrus workshop, 30-year-old tour guide Sara Mahmoud hopes the opening will revive visitor numbers. "Big openings have brought a lot of tourism to Egypt before," she said, pointing to the 2021 Pharaohs' Golden Parade and the reopening of the Avenue of the Sphinxes. "These events get people excited -- we saw the crowds coming in." Such momentum could make a real difference, said Ragui Assaad, an economist at the University of Minnesota. "Any initiative that directly increases foreign exchange earnings is likely to have a good return on investment," he told AFP. "If you compare it with all the other mega-projects, which do not increase foreign exchange earnings... this is a far better project." He was referring to a sweeping infrastructure drive under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, including the construction of a massive new administrative capital east of Cairo. The stakes are high: since 2022, Egypt's currency has lost two-thirds of its value, squeezing household budgets and straining every layer of the economy. "There were days when I sold just one bracelet," Mona lamented, thinking back to the years when "tourists arrived in droves".
West Australian
21-06-2025
- West Australian
Uluru with friends
It feels like just me and 102 close friends at Uluru. Considering we only flew yesterday from Perth direct to Yulara, the airport for Uluru, in under two hours, that's remarkable to me. But then, we are drawn together by our love of the world, and Australia in particular, and by this peculiar adventure. We have partnered with our trusted friends, Holidays of Australia and the World, to charter a National Jet Express Embraer 190 aircraft. Happily, that meant checking in and boarding at NJE's base on the edge of the Perth domestic airport, rather than going through the airport itself. NJE's staff are professional, cheery and helpful. And off we go, with two in the cockpit, three cabin crew and two technical staff — all of who will stay (along with the aircraft) for the four days and three nights we are at Uluru. We fly over this broad landscape of inland WA, with the dot paintings of salt lakes below in the Wheatbelt, Goldfields and Great Victoria Desert — and the earth seeming to redden as we head east. We cross the border quite near Surveyor Generals Corner — the spot where WA, South Australia and the Northern Territory meet. A fly-around has been requested and approved, and the E190 does a figure of eight, so that we see both Kata Tjuta and Uluru from the air. It's a nice little taster. A scene-setter. We land and are straight into AAT Kings buses, with our bags loaded directly onto the coaches and then taken to our rooms at Sails in the Desert. Yulara township, run by Voyages, an Indigenous company, has a range of hotels and accommodation, and Sails in the Desert is the five-star top offering. The rooms are spacious and fully serviced. The central garden and pool area is haunted by ghost gums. It's a comfortable base for our adventure. And that adventure begins at 7.50pm on that first evening, after an early dinner, when we board buses again to drive in the dark to see Field of Light — the 50,000 spindles of light installed by artist Bruce Munro (with help, of course). The lights emphasise the curves of the landscape and change through a spectrum of ochre, deep violet, blue and soft white. It's a chance to take pictures, too, of course. Turn the flash off and hold the phone camera still. Light your friends with another phone torch … and hold the phone camera still. I sleep well in one of my two queen-sized beds, rise early, pick up my boxed breakfast — and the adventure takes a step up when I step onto an AAT Kings coach again at 6.15am. Day two, and I feel very much at home in the red dirt. Throughout the short trip we are fortunate with weather — with temperatures rising into the early 20 degrees under a blue sky during the day and cool evenings. But this morning, as we are driving to a sunrise viewing spot to see the sky turn through dramatic pastel hues and early rays of sun hit the big red body of Uluru, it is cold. I have a few layers on but rather envy the gloves one of my companions is wearing. The cluster of new friends up on the timber platform can see the sun one side and Uluru the other, and I can hear them chatting happily in low voices. But, after joining them, I also walk down onto a lower path to see Uluru sitting where I like it, in this semi arid landscape of red earth and spinifex. In some pictures, I like to focus on this foreground, and have the big arkose sandstone lump just slightly out of focus in the background. To have the foreground in focus, I touch and hold my phone camera's screen in the spot the spinifex is. We then drive on around Uluru, stopping to walk into Mutitjulu Waterhole, all with the excellent narrative of our AAT Kings guide. The guides train through Charles Darwin University, which has a short course called Uluru-Kata Tjuta Knowledge for Tour Guides. It gives tour guides essential information about Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and since 2011, all guides leading tours in the park have had to successfully complete the course. It was developed by park staff, Anangu traditional owners and the tourism industry. Delivered at Yulara, the township at Uluru, it is studied part-time over six months. Students have to reach a required competency level, which helps to give a consistent message and information. After completing our lap of Uluru, we are driven on to Kata Tjuta, to walk up Walpa Gorge. The morning is sunny but not hot. The sky is a strong blue. The lit side of the gorge is red, the side in shade has a more muted mood. But these two giant conglomerate-rock walls create a massive V, with the sky beyond. We are back at Sails in the Desert at 1pm, with everyone full of experience and the stories, I'm sure. With Margot Vine, from Holidays of Australia's home in Adelaide, and Ann Hope as hosts, everyone spends the rest of the day in their own way. I see some chatting in the lounge bar, some sitting out in the warm sun, others looking round the artworks that local Indigenous artists have for sale on the grass near the Town Square, and another reading in a quiet spot. The trip has been structured like this — with time for personal adventures or reflection. Whatever our guests' style is. Next morning, some take off early for the Uluru Base Walk, others work their way through the many free attractions at Yulara, which include a guided walk and explanations in the gardens, and a bush tucker walk. Some listen to a didgeridoo, and learn a little about how it is played. Others are shown through the Gallery of Central Australia. But, come the evening, most are back together at 5pm to leave for the Sound of Silence Dinner. We are driven in coaches to a short walk up to a lookout platform, for drinks as the sun sets, with a good view of Uluru. There is more live didgeridoo playing, and then we walk down to round tables with white tablecloths, fully set on the red earth of the Red Centre. What a sight. Soup, a barbecue buffet (with kangaroo and barramundi for those who chose it) and desserts fill us in the cooling night. Some enjoy the warmth and flames of the fire pit. And then an astronomer comes to point out stars, planets and constellations, in an extended moment that would surely make anyone feel small. We so easily fall into believing we're the centre of the universe, rather than just one being living on a rock that is but one grain of sand in it. On Sunday morning, in the garden of Sails in the Desert, some of us meet to talk phone photography, and learn more about 'the camera in our pocket'. (It's an interstate extension of the PhotoWalks with Phones that colleague Mogens Johansen and I can sometimes offer.) Things are ending. It is Monday morning, and I breakfast with new friends, as we prepare for the short, direct flight back to Perth. The NJE team weigh and tag the bags in a room in the hotel — the flight check-in is here rather than at the airport, and when we arrive there, our two coaches are escorted through a gate and onto the tarmac to drive us straight up to our plane. It's a jolly good way to travel. But for all the excitement of being in the Red Centre, and seeing Uluru and Kata Tjuta, the direct charter flight and the comforts of Sails in the Deserts, conversations will linger too. We travel for different reasons, and some people with us have strong reasons for dipping a toe back out in the world. I value the way they have shared and confided. And I like the way the red earth under our feet seems to have regrounded so many of us. fact file + We have an idea for a slightly different version of the direct charter flight between Perth and Uluru, again in partnership with our friends at Holidays of Australia and the World. If we pull it off, it will be announced first in eTravel, the free digital edition we send by email to inboxes on Wednesdays. Sign up at We just ask for your first and last name and email address, and don't use this for anything else, of course. + As the name suggests, Holidays of Australia and the World will help with travel arrangements for global holidays — from their home State of South Australia and other parts of our continent to Mekong cruises, ocean cruises and Europe touring. It is a family-owned business with Australian staff. Look through all they have to offer at and call 1300 854 897. + Without our charter flight, options for getting to Uluru include flying via Darwin, Melbourne or Alice Springs, which then means a 445km drive to Yulara (from Alice Springs).
