Luxor - The Sights

Karnak Temple, Luxor

Avenue of the Sphinx, Karnak Temple, Luxor

When we arrived, we took a walk up the Corniche. Our hotel was actually just next door to where we’d stayed nine years ago, so we were on semi-familiar territory, although after nine years, it really wasn’t so familiar any more.

As ever, we were stopped every minute by pleas for us to go on a caleche (horse-drawn carriage) or a felucca (small sailing boat). One guy was offering to clean my shoes for 1LE – it was quite sad to see how desperate they were for trade, now that so many tourists have been scared off from visiting Luxor (which felt perfectly safe). We ended up in a new area of greenery just by the museum and sat down for a while. Children came up trying to sell us water or cans of coke. The cruise boats were all lined up, but empty of tourists. We didn’t make it as far as Karnak temple.

The following day we met the organiser and our tour guide in reception and we set off to the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens while our guide tried to work out our plan for the day according to what we had and hadn’t seen on our previous trip all those years ago.

In the end, she compiled a good itinerary of three different tombs – one which was well preserved and near the surface; another one that was a bit of a climb to get inside; and a final one that was never completed. I got rather excited when she kept on talking about gods of prediction, but when I quizzed her about this, it turned out that she was saying “gods of protection”. My momentary hope of writing a book on the role of precognition in Ancient Egypt was thereby thwarted.

I can’t really give justice to the Valley of the Kings and photographs are not allowed – the etchings and drawings are magnificent and it’s hard to grasp just how ancient they are. It’s also the scale that is completely mind-boggling – over 65 are known about (albeit many are minor) and tombs are still being discovered; each individual tomb is huge with each King wishing to outdo previous ones (sadly, human nature appears to remain constant!).

We progressed from there to the Tombs of the Nobles, which are also impressive but have a different style from those in the Valley of the Kings, and then onto the little-visited Madinat Habu, where the paintings are better preserved even than in Karnak Temple.

Looking back, we should have skipped the trip to the Alabaster workshop (it was optional), as the explanation was very quick and even after Lena had bought a set of alabaster cups, the guy selling the items asked for a 20 LE baksheesh and then got into a right strop when we refused to give him anything!

The following day we visited Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple. Karnak Temple is amazing for its scale and the achievement of what seem like impossible feats when you understand when this was done, the amount of work devoted to it, and how much of it is still standing. The avenue of the Sphinx is continually being found to be longer than originally thought. I really love Karnak Temple. 

Luxor Temple is remarkable for its embodiment of various religions and it’s like walking through eras of history as you go. It’s situated right in the middle of the Corniche and has its own charm; historically it is probably the more interesting of the two (although my favourite is Karnak).

Every visitor to Egypt should go to Luxor!