Thanks everyone for your help. Sorry if my OP was a little unclear- yes, I was looking specifically for direct ferries from eastern Mediterranean countries, such as Greece, Turkey, or Israel, and as much as going by sea from Sudan would be interesting it’s a little out of the way. Ferry services from Greece have been suspended for a few years and as far as I can tell there is currently nothing operating from Turkey. According to the Wiki entry on Cyprus, “Services to Israel and Egypt have been terminated for time being.” So yes, psychonaut, I promise I have done my googling.
So, it’s looking more and more like it’s either by land or air or (hopefully not!) to be skipped entirely. But to be honest, most of the research I’ve done is with my stacks of guidebooks that are charged really with selling a destination and playing down the bat-like flies guaranteed trots. I even went as far as getting the necessary shots but if it’s as much as a shithole as many of you imply, do you think the time and money might be better spent somewhere else? I’m going mostly for the history since I’m graduating this year in Classics and Ancient History this Spring after spending the year in northern Italy. While not technically within the scope of Classics I figured Egypt was in the general area and doubtless worth at least ten days if I could find a relatively inexpensive way to get there. Hence, the OP.
Shamozzle, thank you for the words of experience! I realize this is a lot to back into a six week or so timeframe, and Morocco and Spain may have to wait for another time. Greece, Turkey, and Israel are the only set-in-stone destinations so far and figuring out exactly how much time is needed in each place on our student budget is the current challenge. The somewhat ambitious itinerary springs mostly from the fact that this will be the last time in probably the next decade I’ll have the means and time to travel and I don’t want to skip anything that’s worth seeing and within my grasp.
Thanks again to everyone who took the time to reply, and if there is anyone who has taken a land or sea route to Egypt within the last year or so, please share!
You might want to try including the word cruise in your searches - certainly you’ll get a lot of irrelevant results that way, but last time I was in Cyprus (too long ago to be relevant for other purposes), I was offered ‘day cruises’ to Israel and Egypt - I’m sure the vessel would have been a ferry, but the voyage was advertised as a cruise, presumably because that sounds more alluring.
I didn’t go on any of them - my sister went and had to be airlifted home after contracting a very nasty bout of dysentry. Do not neglect travel insurance.
Your set-in-stone choices of Greece, Turkey, and Israel are excellent, especially Turkey IMHO. This seems to be more in line with a six-week itinerary. You definitely won’t run out of things to do!
I’d say that if you are heading to Egypt as well, you might as well fly. If you can find a boat, do it, but flying is pretty cheap IIRC. The other option is to go overland through Syria and Jordan, but that is a whole other protracted ball of wax. An awesome trip, to be sure, but it adds a new dimension to everything.
I would also say that if you are going to be in Israel, you really should hop over to Jordan, too. It’s an amazing place and so close by. Petra will leave you dumbfounded. Wadi Rum is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, and, humbly, I’ve seen a thing or two. It was pretty easy to cross the border into Jordan when I went. I don’t know what it’s like right now…
Did you mention Sudan? :eek: Can you elaborate on that again?
I’m torn. I’ve lived here for 5 years and on some days, I think indeed it IS a shithole. Also, the tourist infrastructure is surprisingly weak for a country that has the Pyramids, Luxor, the Nile, Alexandria, the White Desert, and a well-established mystique based on Cleopatra, the Pharoahs, Tutankhamun, etc.
But if Ancient History is your thing, it is hard to imagine skipping Egypt even if your time is limited. Depending on the route/transport you end up taking, you may want to focus on Alexandria and skip the rest. (My personal favorite attraction in Egypt is the White Desert, but I like rocks better than temples, not that temples aren’t interesting as well.)
The government is trying to turn things around, by the way. They have a new campaign where they are trying to teach people how to behave with good manners toward tourists, and they are publicizing/rewarding exemplary performers in the T&T realm – for example (and I may have my details a little wrong here, I don’t speak Arabic so I get all my info through linguistic/cultural filters) a taxi driver recently tracked down a tourist in order to return a wallet with tons of cash in it that the tourist had left in the cab.
Setting my personal experiences/views/knowledge aside, I am very interested in people’s perceptions of travel here, mostly for professional reasons – a lot of my work is related to policies to further economic development in Egypt, so of course the subject of tourism comes up regularly. So I second the OP – “please share”!
I’ve gone to Egypt several times and found it neither better nor worse than the other countries listed in terms of heat, insects, poverty. The nastiness about Egypt in this thread surprsises me.
[hijack]brett3570 – if this pans out, drop me an e-mail before coming to Israel; I’ll most definitely try and make some time for a fellow Doper! :)[/hijack]
brett3570, although your OP regarding Mediterranean ferry service to Egypt has been answered (i.e. there hasn’t been any since 2001), you might want to check out the “Egypt” page at Seat61.com, a fascinating website whose aim could be summarized as “How to get from London to anywhere, without flying if possible”. It’s updated frequently (the Egypt page as recently as four days ago), and although it leans towards train travel, buses and ferries are covered as well. Air travel is mentioned only as a last resort (e.g. you can get from London to Singapore or Indonesia by scheduled train and bus, but if you want Australia or NZ you’ve got to get airborne for the last leg, unless you’re taking a cruise or a cargo ship).
The linked page gives details of the Cairo - Amman (Jordan) bus and the Cairo - Aqaba - Amman bus-ferry-bus route, and also describes the problems of getting from Egypt to Morocco overland (which was another part of your OP). In brief, you can get from Cairo to Tunisia IF you can get a visa for Libya. Tunisia to Morocco can’t be done overland, because the Morocco/Algerian border is currently closed. If you can solve the Libyan visa problem, there are regular ferries between Tunisia and Marseille (France), whence it’s trivial to get by rail to Spain (and Morocco, via yet another ferry).
[Since surprise has been expressed upthread concerning “ferry” service between Egypt and (landlocked) Sudan, it’s perhaps worth pointing out that the Seat61 “Egypt” page also describes the Cairo - Aswan ~~ Wadi Halfa - Khartoum train-boat-train connection, which involves a Nile steamer from Aswan to Wadi Halfa (Sudan). Not what one would normally call a “ferry”, but definitely a water route between Egypt and Sudan.]
Noone Special, Thank you! I’ll certainly let you know if plans don’t change drastically in the next couple of months. Such hospitality here on the Dope.
And Antonius Block, that website is a fantastic resource. Thank you.
And no, I don’t have any plans to tour Sudan ( :eek: ), I was just saying that though doubtless an adventure I’d just as soon leave the Sudan-Egypt ferry off my itinerary.
I see, and were you on a guided tour or were you traveling independently on public transit? Were your meals catered or were you shopping/dining/eating where the locals do?
I doubt my post will be vey helpful from a practical point of view, but I happen to have a large map of the mediterranean sea right besides me, with what should be regular ferry lines marked on it. Note that I can’t vouch for its accuracy and that the map is several years old, so it might not be up to date.
Anyway, from Egypt, the following routes are mentioned :
-From Port Said, there’s a route to one or several ports in the western Mediterrannean sea (I couldn’t tell where, due to the lines crossing each other, splitting, etc… There could be one or several destinations, and anywhere between Genoa in Italy and Algiers in Algeria, including France, Spain and Morroco)
-From Alexandria, it seems there’s a route to Messina, another to Athens, or maybe Crete or maybe both, another to Latakia in Syria, and another to Haifa (plus one to Port Said).
OK, it definitively wasn’t helpful, and I should have read the tread first. Sorry, I couldn’t help, since I had finally an use for my mediterranean sea ferries map…
Wow, I have a friend that just got back and he loved it. He actually did mention the flies but he said they had a wonderful time. The pictures he brought back were fabulous. He didn’t travel independently, I think it was a group of 4 people and they had their own guide.
He said it wasn’t a cheap trip. They flew there and then they were on some sort of a small cruise ship(?) He said the ship slept about 50. I’m not clear on all the details but I can get information for you if you want.
Don’t worry. I missed the suspension of ferry service in my bragging about my awesome google-fu. Fortunately, I’ve had four decades of playing the fool, so I’m used to being wrong. Just ask my wife.
When I was in Crete (a long time ago) there were “cruise” trips to Egypt as well.
A friend of mine got back from Egypt on Saturday. She had a great time, but said Cairo was a shithole. She did say, however, that the area round the pyramids has been cleaned up a lot by the tourist police, so you can avoid hassle there. The best bit, she said, was a four-day dhow trip down the Nile, sleeping under the stars on deck. And her pictures of the ptolomaeic ruins were amazing.
