Daily Travel Photo: Pyramids of Giza in Egypt

The pyramids are Great. When Alexander the Great visited the Pyramids in 332 BC, I'm sure he thought so too. Its hard not to be impressed. At that time Alexander was there the Great Pyramid was still the worlds tallest structure as it continued to be for about the next 1000 years until Christendom caught up on the height stakes, but not the grandeur.

On the day I went to the Pyramids, I almost felt that it was because I "had to". Having been to a lot of the "must see" destination in Egypt, the pyramids were basically the last big ticket attraction for me in Egypt, and I was pretty exhausted. Nevertheless I got up early and caught a combination of the subway and buses to get there just as the gates opened and before the convoy of tour buses arrived.

There's something magic walking around the only surviving "real" wonders of the world with a camera in hand, and photographing what is one of the most photographed buildings of the world. Its not the sort of place where my photos were ever going to be particularly original, but it was a lot of fun nevertheless.

If you come early and stay for long enough, you get to see the tourist hoards arrive and no longer have the place to yourself. In a way, having seen the pyramids at a quiet time, it was interesting to see the circus unfold.

By the time I left, I'd overcome my earlier exhaustion, and was ready to move on to Jordan!

The image below is from an ad in "America Photographer Magazine" the shot to the right is one of my first shots of the day - taken with the Olympus E510 and its underrated kit zoom - the 40-150mm f4-5.6. I'm glad Istock does't have a "filter by camera option"!