Ever fancied traveling to Egypt to take in the last remaining wonder of the ancient world, the Pyramids (and Great Sphinx) of Giza, but haven’t had the cash or aren’t too fond of the actual travel part? Google Street View has your back, with the addition of a new walking tour of the Giza plateau added to a list of fascinating virtual tours that includes other ancient marvels such as Stonehenge and Angkor Wat.
While the actual experience of being there can never be surpassed, Google’s tour does bring some facets of the real thing into your home – not least the overpowering size of the things. Having been lucky enough to visit Giza myself (way back in 1998), what really blew me away was standing up close to the Great Pyramid and taking in the way the massive blocks seemed to just extend upwards into the blue sky – and Google’s tour does its best at providing that feeling.
But as much as I love the addition of Giza to Google’s Street View tours, I can’t help but feel that they’ve really missed a trick here. Why not get the permission of Egyptian authorities to go off the beaten track, so that millions of people at home could walk in the ‘forbidden areas’ of the Plateau, such as right up between the paws of the Sphinx, or on top of the Great Pyramid? Or, at the very least, inside the pyramids themselves, so we could all walk up the amazing Grand Gallery, take in the grandeur of the King’s Chamber, or feel the claustrophia of walking within the tight passages? Even the Sphinx Temple is off limits, though thankfully you can take a look inside the Valley Temple on the way to the viewing platform for the Sphinx.
That said, I’m hardly one to look a gift horse – or camel, as the case may be – in the mouth, and am really pleased to see this tour of Giza now available for us all. And also note that the new Egyptian Street View tours aren’t restricted to Giza, with a number of other sites, including the Step Pyramid of Djoser, also now available for viewing.
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