Looks like a great way to spend a vacation (if there only weren't terrorists around).
Cruising in style on the Nile
VICKI VIRTUE
Last updated 05:00, July 22 2015
Vicki Virtue
Mahmoud (right), son of Nour El Nil’s owner, helps Ahmed the captain at the tiller to keep the 40-metre dahabiyya on course.
In the winter of 1849 an unknown and unpublished French writer, Gustave Flaubert, boarded a sailboat on the banks of the river Nile in Egypt. On that same voyage was a young woman from England, a beautiful, well-bred, yet unhappy young lady, whose parents opposed her dream of becoming a nurse on the basis that it was unsuitable for a woman in her position.
That woman was Florence Nightingale. And in Anthony Sattin's book A Winter on the Nile he claims her voyage down this great river was where Miss Nightingale "found emotional recovery, the inspiration to resist parental pressure, and the resolve to pursue her dream of a career in nursing".
One hundred and sixty-six years later I followed in these illustrious footsteps and also stepped aboard a dahabiyya , one of the glorious sailboats of the Middle Ages that once carried the rich and royal along what is still arguably the world's most romantic river. And, like Florence Nightingale, it was a journey I had long dreamed of taking.
It began with a stroll through the charming little farming town of Esna where the persistent requests for baksheesh (tips) that had tested our patience in Cairo and Luxor were mercifully absent.
Continue reading at:
Cruising in style on the Nile Stuff.co.nz
Cruising in style on the Nile
VICKI VIRTUE
Last updated 05:00, July 22 2015
Vicki Virtue
Mahmoud (right), son of Nour El Nil’s owner, helps Ahmed the captain at the tiller to keep the 40-metre dahabiyya on course.
In the winter of 1849 an unknown and unpublished French writer, Gustave Flaubert, boarded a sailboat on the banks of the river Nile in Egypt. On that same voyage was a young woman from England, a beautiful, well-bred, yet unhappy young lady, whose parents opposed her dream of becoming a nurse on the basis that it was unsuitable for a woman in her position.
That woman was Florence Nightingale. And in Anthony Sattin's book A Winter on the Nile he claims her voyage down this great river was where Miss Nightingale "found emotional recovery, the inspiration to resist parental pressure, and the resolve to pursue her dream of a career in nursing".
One hundred and sixty-six years later I followed in these illustrious footsteps and also stepped aboard a dahabiyya , one of the glorious sailboats of the Middle Ages that once carried the rich and royal along what is still arguably the world's most romantic river. And, like Florence Nightingale, it was a journey I had long dreamed of taking.
It began with a stroll through the charming little farming town of Esna where the persistent requests for baksheesh (tips) that had tested our patience in Cairo and Luxor were mercifully absent.
Continue reading at:
Cruising in style on the Nile Stuff.co.nz
