Siwa Oasis

Siwa is a remote oasis not far from the border with Libya. Settlement here dates to at least the 10th millennium BCE.
My 1st impression is that it is far larger than I imagined. It is about 80 km by 20 km. So it's a lot more than the romanticized pond or spring surrounded by palm trees, though all those things are here just on auch larger scale.
The 1st picture looks over a portion of the oasis to give a sense of the extent and scale if this place.
The 2nd picture looks through a stand of palm trees like those visible in the 1st picture. I can understand the attraction of such places: it is noticeably cooler in there.
The 3rd picture is the so called Cleopatra's Spring, though there is no record of the famous Cleopatra coming here. It is probably the best known of the springs around the oasis. I'm told there are as many as 240 springs here.
The 4th picture is in the old city in that section seen in the picture taken from Shali Fortress (see another post). There are efforts under way to revive the old town for tourism. Hints of that effort can be seen here.
The 5th picture looks across the park in the main square. For me, this pictures typifies Siwa as the combination of sand desert and oasis that it is.
The last picture is in a different section of the oasis. These are Ronan tombs carved into the cliff face. I'm told that that is is also where the Roman settlement had located their administrative facilities and religious temples too (at least the funerary temples).Leggi altro