Hi there
Greetings from Cairo, where I have been breakfasting with 15 amazing NOON women before we set off to explore the brand new Great Egyptian Museum.
It was my dream when I first set up NOON to lead Queenager trips to incredible places. We’ve been some wonderful places – gorgeous Wales, amazing Morocco – and this week that dream became reality again (and how!) in the City of a Thousand Minarets.
Welcome rooftop cocktails
We arrived in Cairo late on Thursday and had dinner and cocktails on the roof looking out over the city. I came to Cairo 30 years ago to interview Omar Sharif, when the city was less than half the size of its current 25 million megatropolis status. In the dusk it felt distinctly Bladerunner-esque: Huge new residential and business developments cheek-by-jowl with biblical-looking donkey carts laden with cauliflowers.
The next morning we woke at 4am and headed straight for the pyramids. Our incredible partner Jules Verne has moved heaven and earth for us to get into the site before it was officially open.
Out of the darkness loomed three huge structures…the three Pyramids of Giza! They were more like hills than buildings. We felt like the only people in the world, standing in the desert in the cool wind of predawn.
I cannot really put into words the mystical power and beauty of being at the pyramids as light began to creep across the sky, moon and stars slowly giving way to dawn.
We walked down to the Sphinx, entering the holiest part of the temple where the pharaohs’ souls were thought to be taken from their bodies by priests and held in jars. The marble walls felt warm. In the dusky light the energy of the place was fizzing. Closing my eyes I could feel it.
The chance to be in that incredible temple built 5,000 years ago, in silence, to experience it undisturbed. It was a true and rare gift
Another memorial, another goodbye
We walked up through the temple and sat looking up at the Sphinx as the day brightened. Its beautiful form seemed to glow: With wonderful Queenagers around me, I felt moved by gratitude and the spirit of the place, so much that tears ran down my face.
I wasn’t the only one. Later one of the other women said: “The mightiness of the place, their sense of eternity, the scale – it makes me wonder about my own life. What is my legacy? What is it all for?”
So often when we visit the wonders of the world, we actual experience an overwhelming throng of humanity, over-tourism, everyone seeking the Insta shot. It can detract (or even erase) any sense of the spirit of where we are. At the Alhambra, I remember feeling so hemmed in by people that I couldn’t enjoy or just be in that place at all.
By contrast, consider our solo tour of the pyramids: The chance to be in that incredible temple built 5,000 years ago, in silence, to experience it undisturbed. It was a true and rare gift. This is the kind of experience I always wanted to provide to our wonderful community.
See our magical first day – watch the video
We ascended the hill again and sat watching as the sun rose over Cairo – pink, crimson, orange, clouds then suddenly a view of the city which had been completely hidden in the darkness. I was struck by the jagged edges of the pyramids in silhouette, the colossal size of them.
How on earth, before bulldozers or cranes, humans had managed to heave so many 2 ton blocks of limestone hundreds of feet into the air. (This is still a mystery. A team of modern scientists tried to build a pyramid using sand ramps and wooden logs as rollers. They only managed to build six feet of height!) Another experiment using bulldozers and cranes and cut blocks couldn’t get the stones to stay together yet the pyramids are built with no cement or adhesives.
I learned the sophistication of Ancient Egypt
The more I learn about the sophistication of Ancient Egypt and its technological achievements in everything from medicine (there are mummies that have metal holding their joints together) to the precision with which they cut stone or applied gold leaf, the more miraculous it seems. How could they have had all that knowledge 7,000 years ago (5,000 BC for some of it)?
After a hearty breakfast and coffee, we headed for Saqqara – another necropolis and home to the oldest step pyramid. I’d thought the pyramids of Giza were the only ones, but actually there are many in various states of repair, stretching in a broken line along the edge of the desert, above the reaches of the annual Nile floods.
We climbed down deep shafts way below the entrance to the stone structures, where we found tons covered in painted stars and walls of hieroglyphics looking weirdly like computer code. Then we explored the mighty complex, built to reflect in the afterlife the palace of the pharaoh in his current life. The scale is immense as is the step pyramid.
We returned to Giza via Memphis, the ancient capital where Ramses II’s colossal statue lies in state. There were some Queenager sniggers of admiration over the size of his – ahem – pecs….
By lunchtime, we had been going for 7 hours and feasted handsomely in the KU FU restaurant surrounded by Emirati and Chinese families dressed in diamonds and Chanel. It is tempting to think of the UK as the centre of the world. A couple of days in Egypt is a stark reminder of the rise of wealth and sophistication in Asia and the rest of the world. The money sloshing around this city reflects huge shifts in the world’s wealth creators from West to East.
Our Raiders of the Lost Ark moments
After dining on quail, rice pudding with hazelnuts and exceptional dips and salads we returned to the pyramids and the Sphinx. If we needed any reminding about how lucky we had been that morning on our solo tour, this was surely it. Our peaceful temple was rammed; the Sphinx almost invisible behind selfie sticks. The Great Pyramid however was still serene and majestic, the crowds swarming around like ants on a mountain. Immense, each block two tons and almost head height.
We climbed down again, this time into the tomb of one of Cheops’s queens, singing the refrain to Raiders of the Lost Ark as we disappeared into a long waist-height tunnel down into the earth, in the queen’s tomb where her coffin would have rested. I’d expected to find it claustrophobic and creepy, but the reality was surprising calm and peaceful.
What an adventure! It was fuelled constantly by laughter, incisive questions, camaraderie, easy friendship and the expert input of our wonderful Queenager Professor of Egyptology Mahal.
Admiring treasures in the new Great Egyptian Museum
As I finish writing this, we have just returned from the new Great Egyptian Museum, stuffed with the treasures of the tombs. Tutankhamun’s golden throne but also his gold shroud, his golden death mask and all his worldly goods – sandals, beds, jewellery, jars, dishes to hold geese and chickens and quail, a boat, chairs including an inlaid throne and his camping chairs (not actually for camping but practical pieces that could be folded for travel or military use).
The extent of it is overwhelming, as is the architecture of the building itself. Think Pompidou or Guggenheim on steroids. All glass and metal and views of the Pyramids. The Egyptians are still good at construction! All I can say is: GO!
I must leave you now as we are about to assemble for a NOON Circle in our hotel, followed by dinner.
The trip so far has just been a series of Wows! Tomorrow we go to the Grand Mosque, cruising down the Nile and another Circle with some Egyptian Queenagers!
We’ll be sharing loads more photos, videos and adventures on our Instagram so make sure you’re following @uponnoon.
More next time – much love!
Eleanor
P.S. Also this week
NOON at the Re:Work Live conference
While we were making our way around Cairo, my Editorial Director Jennifer Howze was with Wendy Lloyd and Helen Moore – two fabulous Queenager members – at the Re:Work Live conference in London, meeting loads of women (of all ages!) and telling them about NOON plus our Rebrand Yourself course.
We’ve just posted details of our FREE webinar about the secrets of rebranding – taking place in January. You can sign up now and learn how to start 2026 with a stronger sense of yourself and your purpose! Sign up here.
So many women of all ages loved the NOON message.
One young women even chased down Jennifer & Wendy in the street later to say she found our message so inspiring and wants to be like us when she grows up! It just shows how the NOON message of a great next chapter is good not just for us Queenagers but younger women too!
Jennifer’s reporting about boys and gambling in The Times
In Saturday’s Times Jennifer wrote about gaming and gambling and how we could be creating a generation of children – boys especially – who are hooked on gambling, with the associated problems in how it effects brain, mood and of course finances.
Jennifer also has a new Substack providing information and support for families affected by a loved one’s gambling problem – they are called Affected Others. Check out her Substack, Spotlight on Affected Others, and read the piece. It’s an issue we all need to be aware of!
