When Thomas Cook went bankrupt in September 2019, hundreds of thousands of holiday makers were stranded. Tens of thousands of employees were out of a job, including many local service providers. Thomas Cook and Son was a household name in the travel industry, two men who single-handedly invented organised travel, and paved the way for…
Category: Early travel
Carnarvon and the search for Tutankhamun
In the summer of 2011, I had the pleasure to visit Highclere Castle with a tour group I was guiding together with a friend and fellow Egyptologist from the Huis van Horus foundation. Upon arrival I was impressed by its rolling lawns (lazy pheasants included), charming garden temple and majestic façade reminiscent of London’s Houses of Parliament….
Artefacts of Petrie
When the Englishman William Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) first came to Egypt, he was 27 years old. Visitors to the Giza plateau must have looked up in suprise when they noticed a young man in pink pyjamas emerging from one of the rock tombs in the morning. In the desert glare it almost seemed as if…
The stubborn travels of Alexine Tinne
Alexandrine Tinne (1835-1869) was the daughter of a wealthy merchant in 19th century The Hague. Her father left her a fortune so vast that she could spend it at will on as lavish a lifestyle as she desired. But instead of wasting her inheritance on elaborate dinner parties and other pastimes of ‘Haguois’ high society,…
J.H. Insinger: A Dutchman in Egypt
In the 19th century, if you were well-to-do and suffering from lung disease such as tuberculosis, your best option was to reside in the agreeable dry climate of Egypt. Lady Lucie Duff Gordon (the 19th century authoress, not to be confused with the 20th century fashion designer and Titanic survivor) was among those who traded…
Women explorers of Egypt
Yesterday was International Women’s Day. It strikes me as odd that half the world’s population gets only one specific day per year to demonstrate for equal rights. I suggest that for the next couple of thousand years, every single day is devoted to women’s rights. Then we might call it even. To focus on the…