Egypt, the land of the Pyramids and Pharaohs is a country that is steeped in history and lore, and inexplicably something every child studies about in their history textbooks. It was the cradle of civilization and has given mankind stunning creations like the pyramids and many temples, irrigation systems, agricultural techniques, papyrus and an effective system of medicine. So it has been one of our top destinations to visit ever since we began traveling!
Egypt, unfortunately, has been at the center of political strife and uncertainty over the last decade, and making a trip there safely is something that needs planning a little bit of luck. We took the plunge at the end of 2019, to include Egypt on our 2 week middle east itinerary so that we could finally check it off our list.
The main attraction of any trip to Egypt would undoubtedly be Cairo, which I have covered here. Our itinerary involved flying into Cairo from Amman, spending a couple of days exploring Cairo, then spending a few days in Luxor before heading back to Cairo and then onwards to Oman. More about the logistics of any trip to Egypt have been covered in the Cairo post.
We took an early morning flight from Cairo and landed in Luxor around 9am. The airport is chaotic to say the least (as with pretty much everything else in Egypt) and we had to wait for about 2 hours to get our luggage. There was a mix up with four flights landing in a span of 30 mins and it was total madness. That being said, if there is any place in the world where I would highly recommend being on a guided tour, it is in Egypt. Take our word for it, splurge on a reputed tour company and your visit to Egypt will be much smoother, this is not the country to try to do DIY holidaying!
Luxor is known as the largest open air museum in the world, with stunning architecture to be seen on both the east and west banks of the Nile. As with all of Egypt, the eastern bank is host to all the temples (being the side where the sun rises), and the west bank (where the sun sets of course!) is where the tombs reside.
The five things you must not miss when visiting Luxor are the impressive temple complexes of Karnak and Luxor (on the east bank), the valley of the Kings and the sanctuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut (west bank) and taking a felucca ride (on the river Nile!!).
We checked into our hotel (Mercure Luxor, highly recommended) and then our tour guide picked us up and we headed off for our first day of sightseeing. The east bank was on our itinerary for today as driving to the west bank takes upwards of an hour and we didn’t have enough time to cover all the places on the west bank without being too rushed.
First stop was the magnificent Karnak temple, located about 20 mins drive outside the main city of Luxor. This is one of the largest temple complexes in Egypt, and you have to remind yourself continuously that this was built a good 4000 years ago! The complex is dominated by the temple of Amun-Ra, with its famous hypostyle hall, a stunning forest of over a 100 giant papyrus-shaped columns. The intricate carving still remains to this day on these columns, and the sheer brilliance of the ancient civilization of Egypt will awe you while you wonder how they managed to erect these towers with such precision and build the complex without modern machinery!
Egypt is one place where I would highly recommend getting a knowledgeable guide, or an “Egyptologist” as they are called. If you are with a tour company, they will take care of this, and I will attest that it really makes your experience much much better. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and had studied Egyptian history for his masters degree and explained to us in great detail the stories behind the monuments we were visiting.
The temple of Amun-Ra will ensnare you with its sheer size and I would suggest spending some time walking around the complex and admiring the stupendous architectural achievement that it was. Karnak is also much much bigger than Luxor temple, so definitely earmark more time to explore the complex.
Excavation work is still ongoing at all of Luxor’s sites, and a 3km long avenue of sphinxes was discovered recently which connects the Karnak temple to the Luxor temple. You can see a short portion of this paved road, which is still in such good condition, makes me wonder why roads in India can’t last a single monsoon season!
We then headed over to the main city of Luxor to grab some lunch, and then headed over to the Luxor temple which sits bang in the city center. Luxor temple is much smaller but has an impressive entrance with the end of the aforementioned sphinx avenue leading up to two colossal statues of Ramses II. We just had a day and a half in Luxor, but if you have more time, it is worth visiting both complexes at either sunrise or sunset when it is bereft of crowds. Coming from Karnak, you will definitely feel the drastically reduced scale of the construction at Luxor, but by no means should you skip it. Luxor also has interesting stories attached to its construction but I won’t mention them here, it’s much more impactful when you hear it from your egyptologist on site!
Even though it was December, the winter sun was strong, and we were tired after more than 4 hours of exploring temple complexes. We headed back to our hotel to chill for a couple of hours and then it was time to look for a felucca so that we could spend some time sailing on the Nile. Our hotel was on the banks of the Nile, and because we hadn’t booked in advance, our tour guide couldn’t find a free felucca at such short notice. We decided to go down to the portion of the Nile that our hotel bordered and spoke to a guy who had his boat parked there. After a bit of haggling, we negotiated on a price for a 2 hour sunset cruise. Apparently another couple had booked a longer cruise, but he would take us on a normal boat and meet the felucca that was a little downstream.
So we set off in a covered motorboat and soon spotted the felucca in the distance. It is a majestic sailboat with its bright sails that can be spotted from afar. The Nile was resplendent that day, with the sun catching the ripples of water in a soothing motion. After acrobatically hopping aboard the felucca from our boat (in the middle of the Nile) we said hello to our fellow travellers and our felucca crew and settled down for in our opinion one of the best boat rides we have taken. The crew was amazing, and made us fresh mint tea while we exchanged stories with the other couple on board.
Sunset followed soon enough, and we enjoyed the golden rays reflecting off the rocky mountains on the west bank while gently swaying along with the currents of the Nile. Two hours passed by much faster than we imagined, and it was such a relief to spend some time in the calm soothing waters of the Nile without having to deal with the bustling crowds and persistent touts everywhere else in Egypt (although Luxor is much much better that Cairo)! Once it started to get dark, we turned back and headed to our hotel and called it a day and we had an early start again tomorrow.
Next day, it was time to head up to the tombs and mortuaries of the west bank. First stop was the Valley of the Kings, a remarkable archaeological treasure, and the final resting place of 62 Pharaohs of the New Kingdom of Egypt. Your entry ticket includes visits to 3 tombs in the complex, and don’t waste your money on entering King Tut’s tomb (KV62) as all the main artefacts have already been removed and you will see it when you visit the Egyptian museum in Cairo. Not to be missed are the tombs of Seti (KV17), Ramses VI (KV9) and Ramses III (KV11).
There is some amount of walking involved as you go down into the depths of the tombs though nothing really that taxing. What will leave you stunned is the sheer detail and artistry that the ancient Egyptians have left behind in the decoration of their burial chambers. It’s again another one of those places where words fail to do justice and it certainly needs to be seen to be believed. You have to pay extra if you want to take a camera with you, but the night mode on the top smartphones do just as good a job! My favorite was how in one of the tombs they had a night sky depiction on the roof complete with twinkling stars and constellations.
Exploring the three tombs will take at least 2-3 hours after which you should definitely head out to the Deir el-Bahari which is a complex of mortuary temples, the most famous being the Temple of Hatshepsut (which our guide told us to pronounce as hot-sheep-soup!). Sadly this being peak tourist season, there was a horde of tourists all around, and given the time, I would have come here early morning to see the temple devoid of people. The structure is grand, and although definitely restored, your jaw will still drop in awe when you first see it. Situated at the base of the hill, it is an extraordinary building, more so as it is built for one of the few female Pharaohs of Egypt. As with all monuments here, just keep in mind how very old they are as you admire the architectural brilliance of the ancient Egyptians!
With that, we finished the tour of the West Bank of Luxor. As a city, we really loved the vibe of the place, it is much more relaxed and easy going than Cairo, and given time, we would have spent more time here. There are more temple complexes to explore and it is also the perfect base to explore Aswan and the temple of Abu-Simbel. Alas, time was scarce so we couldn’t do those items. In the evening, we headed back to the airport and caught our flight back to Cairo. It was new years eve, and we hoped that we would be back in our hotel in Cairo by dinner time so we could enjoy a nice new years eve dinner, but sadly the chaos of Egypt had other ideas. Of course our flight was delayed and it was 1130pm by the time we got back to our hotel in Cairo. Oh well, you can’t have everything can you!?!
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