Tanis is like no other site in Egypt, and the journey getting there is very much a part of the total experience. So do not fall asleep. You will have to travel through the green and completely flat Nile delta, on where the traffic slows down because of the many donkey carts. And then, suddenly, weird brown mounds rise above the ground, where only a couple of simple huts mark where the ruins of Tanis are.
Tanis is clearly not on the average tour group itenerary, the excavations have until now not been cleared enough, and the reassembling process is in an early stage. But when you are there all by yourself, knowing that it was Egypt's capital for more than 350 years, and that the main temple was among the largest ever built in Egypt, your imagination is tickled.
Tanis has many fine statues, great reliefs, unusually many nilometers and some royal tombs built according to patterns not used since the Old Kingdom mastabas.
