"It is a place that strikes you into silence." - Amelia Edwards, 'A Thousand Miles Up The Nile', 1876
From our 3rd floor room at the El Mesala, overlooking the Nile ($32/night!) we had an amazing view of sunrise, with boats large and small going back and forth across this great river. For about $4, we hired a boat to take us directly to the great temple of Karnak, the largest religious complex in the world. You certainly can't see everything in one visit, so we concentrated on a few things, the first of which was the open air museum. There are many beautiful things here, the most incredible probably being the White Chapel of Senusret I. This was reconstructed by archaeologists who found the stones scattered around Karnak, most of which were used as fill in some of the huge pylons in later years. The carvings in this temple are some of the best in Egypt. You can imagine that the carved owl is going to fly right off the wall, his feathers are so finely carved
From here we went to the temple of Ptah. The best thing here was the small, dark rooms where the statues of Ptah and Sekhmet are. A small hole in the ceiling illuminates the statues in a beautiful, mysterious way.
“It may be that the traveller who finds himself for the first time in the midst of a grove of Sequoiadendron gigantea feels something of the same overwhelming sense of awe and wonder; but the great trees, though they have taken three thousand years to grow, lack the pathos and the mystery that comes of human labour. They do not strike their roots through six thousand years of history. They have not been watered with the blood and tears of millions…But every breath that wanders down the painted aisles of Karnak seems to echo back the sighs of those who perished in the quarry, at the oar and under the chariot wheels of the conqueror.” - Amelia Edwards, ‘A Thousand Miles Up The Nile’, 1876
From here, we wandered around the enormous temple, trying to stay in the less crowded parts. But my favorite place is always e great hypostyle hall, built by Seti I, which never fails to impress.
"It is such a wonder that it would be exceptional even at Thebes...a masterpiece worthy of all our admiration"...Jean-Francois Champollion, 1821
At 9am we showed up at the antiquities office to get our Luxor Red Pass. This is a brand new program where for $200 you get a five day pass that lets you into all the open tombs, monuments and museums in Luxor. It's now 20% off, so it's $160. This includes the tombs of Nefertari and Seti I, which we paid many $$$ to see last year.
So we went straight to the Luxor Museum. This is a beautiful place, not too big, just the right size. All the objects are exquisite, many statues, a couple of mummies and some objects from Tut's tomb, including a chariot.
Mummy's toes
"We opened their coffins and their mummy-wrappings...We brought back the gold we found on the noble mummy of this god, together with his pectorals and other jewelry which were around his neck." - papyrus of Amunpanafer, stonemason of Deir el-Medina, 1114 BC.
In the afternoon, Luxor Red Pass in hand, we headed up to the Valley of the Queens, where the most was wonderful tomb in the world is, the tomb of Nefertari. Again, we had some amazing serendipity. Through our friend in California, Vicky Jensen, we met Ahmed, who owns the wonderful Sunflower restaurant On the West Bank. Ahmed, introduced us to a driver he knows, Haled. As we drove to Nefertari's tomb, Haled mentions that he inspector, the head guy of Nefertari tomb. Haled called his friend who was off work, but said he would talk to the guy who was at the tomb now. So when we arrived at the tomb, the inspector said take as much time as you want (normally you are only allowed 10 minutes in the tomb). So we had an amazing 40 minutes in Nefertari's tomb. All these pictures are off the internet, as you can't take pictures in the tomb.
