From Egypt’s first unification to its final conquest by outside forces (Alexander) was about 2800 years, but the time since that conquest to now is only 2300 years (or so). By comparison, the Roman empire (Eastern or Western) lasted only a fraction of the time since the Egyptian civilization ruled itself.
One that I read somewhere about Egypt: When Tutankhamen was Pharaoh, the pyramids at Giza had already been standing for over 1,000 years. When Cleopatra came to power, Tutankhamen had been dead for over 1,000 years.
“All the world fears Time. Time fears the Pyramids.”
brilliant
Always fun in old cities, where streets were built to accommodate horsedrawn carts at most. I remember staying in Lisbon which had the same kind of streets in the Alfama district. Even witnessed a car being stuck between walls. That’s IMHO a lot of the charm and character of Europe. In the town where I was born we had a street that was so narrow you could touch the houses on both sides, standing in the middle. That was built in the 1500s or so.
This street was originally meant for transporting heavy loads from the harbour to the town. The men carrying the burlap sacks on their backs could lean against the walls to rest without toppling over. It’s less than 3 ft wide.
Oh gawd I’ve done that at least twice - in Italy (with an old lady shouting at me in Italian from her porch, which was really helpful) and France. I’ve also turned a corner in an old Italian hill town and found myself driving down a sweeping stone staircase, like something out of a James Bond movie. Or the Italian Job.
God that’s one of my recurring dreams. Wonder what it means.
We were in Siena once and had to negotiate a very steep driveway to get out of the parking lot adjacent to the hotel. Took us four attempts to actually land it.
My worst memories are from Malta in that respect. Absolutely crammed everywhere and the Italian driving style combined with driving on the opposite side of the road from what we’re used to. I still respect my husband a great deal for negotiating traffic there.
TIL that Finland lost 5% of its male population (100,000 men) in WWII. That would be the equivalent of 9 Million Americans.
What a great quote! I haven’t happened upon it before. Who said (wrote) it?
I heard it in a documentary on the pyramids years ago (in a deep, “this-is-serious” male announcer voice). Don’t know where it came from.
ETA: googling indicates it’s an Arab proverb, but quoted as “Man fears time”
“…and the Pyramids fear Chuck Norris.”
Thanks!
France in WW1 had it just as bad, on a larger scale - more than 1.3 million military deaths (of which 1.1 million were combat deaths) out of a pre-war population of less than 40 million. Something to think of the next time the “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” meme pops up.
Put another way, the USA lost 58,000 dead (combat and non-combat) in Vietnam, and we all know how traumatic that was for the country. Relative to population, that’s equivalent to about 14,000 dead from a country the size of 1914 Britain. In WW1, the British famously lost 19,000 dead in one day - and that wasn’t the bloodiest day of the war.
LOL. My recurring dream is driving up a hill so steep that the car starts to flip backwards. It was only when I revisited a childhood holiday town - Harlech in North Wales - that I realised, that the steep hill was one my father used to drive up, making all us kids in the back scream by shouting ‘we’re not going to make it’. Turns out it’s (possibly) the steepest road in the world (this wasn’t known in the 70s).
Holy cow, that’s steep! I love that there’s an “unsuitable for motors” sign near the top of the street and yet Google Streetview shows parked cars. I presume “unsuitable for motors” is a warning sign rather than an enforceable one?
I think it must be, because we always drove up there. I think otherwise it would show a no entry sign.
I once visited a winery in El Dorado County, California, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The driveway up to the winery had a short very steep section where they’d posted a sign that read “use low gear”. I was driving up the driveway in second gear and thought to myself “Second is plenty low, right?” Nope. I couldn’t make it up the hill second; I had to shift into first gear to make it up that section. That was the first and only time I encountered a hill so steep I had to use first gear.
Sorry about the double post; missed the edit window.
That article says:
He added that a street in San Francisco was now understood to be looking at taking the title away from Wales.
Now I wonder how steep the famous section of Lombard Street with the switchbacks would be if it were straight.
The hotel manager in Siena came out oto assist. He instructed us to back up, step on the gas and keep it there 
We never encountered anything like that again. We burned a lot of oil. Good thing it was a rental.
This reminded me of my favorite urban myth. Many years ago the Tour de France introduced the categorisation of climbs (all bike races subsequently copied the practice). A notable climb is category 4, then there is cat 3 (tougher), cat 2 (a bit of a sod), cat 1 (awful) and finally HC (Hors Catégorie - beyond classification - utterly hideous). The myth? Back in the early days of the Tour de France, one of the race vehicles, a Citroën (model varies with the telling) was used to set the category. If it could get up the climb in 4th gear, that was a cat 4 climb…all the way to having to go up in 1st gear for a cat 1 climb. If it just couldn’t get up the climb at all, it was Hors Catégorie. The story is, naturally, BS - but I like it nevertheless. Here’s a specimen of the tale.
j
Just 27 % (it’s 18.2 with the curves). The article is probably referring to this report by some adventurer who explored the city’s streets with his tilt-meter. AFAICT none of his measurements have been independently confirmed.