Luxor

---

Luxor is a beautiful city that straddles the Nile in southern, or “upper” Egypt. We spent nine days there, mostly because we had such a comfortable hotel room, and saw the sights at a much slower than average pace, which the hotel staff constantly made fun of us for. Most of the tourists there are on package tours and come to the city on cruise ships from Cairo, so it was a little difficult for us being independent travelers and not having a guide or bus, just our trusty lonely planet and our feet to get us around.

Luxor is the former capitol of Egypt. Pharohs used to live there and left behind some amazing temples and tombs filled with treasure. The Valley of the Kings, - the pharohs graveyard, - was the best part of our visit to Luxor. From 2150 BC the pharohs stopped being buried in pyramids and elaborate tombs were dug deep into the ground in the Valley of the Kings, a somewhat hidden valley where nothing grows. So far 62 tombs have been excavated, but when we were there only 11 were open to the public. Like the tombs in the pyramids, most or all have been looted by tomb raiders thousands of years ago. The tomb raiders stole the gold, and jewels, sometimes lighting a fire inside the tomb and returning later to take the melted gold. And some took everything, including the mummy to sell to tourists. We went to the Luxor Museum and saw a mummy that had been sold to a tourist in the mid 1800’s, and later sold to a curiosity museum in Niagara Falls, Canada. It was found to be the mummy of Rameses I and returned to Luxor in 2003! Crazy. The most famous tomb we went into was the tomb of King Tutankhamun, or King Tut. He wasn’t all that important of a Pharoh, he only ruled for about nine years, but his tomb is so famous because it remained hidden until 1922 when archeologist Howard Carter found it fully intact and only partially robbed. The tomb itself isn’t all that impressive compared to the others we visited, but the mummy is still inside in a glass case with his face unwrapped. Other tombs we went in were Rameses VI, TuthmosisIII, Amenhotep II, and Rameses III. My favorite was Tuthmosis III, rumored by some to be the pharoh of the Bible, because of the size of it. It was the longest tomb, with narrow passageways opening up into larger rooms, and beautiful paintings on the walls and ceilings.

Nearby the Valley of the Kings is the Valley of the Queens. The queen's tombs were not as impressive as the kings, but still amazing. The Valley of the Queens had 3 tombs open to visit and only one of them was actually for a queen. But between the Kings and Queens Valley is the Temple of Hatshepsut. She was a woman pharoh who wore a false beard was considered somewhat of a feminist. She left behind an amazing temple carved into the side of a cliff. Back when the temple was still in use it was full of exotic plants and trees. But now its full of people selling souveniers.

The rest of our time in Luxor was spent hanging out at our hotel and talking to other travelers, and saying "la shukran" (no thank you) to people trying to sell us stuff, or "emshay" (get away from me).

---

Photos

roof top
hanging out with monsor and monsor on the roof of our hotel

quintessential luxor
tour bus and horse carrige

so many big boats
obviously luxor attracts tourism, from backpackers,archeologists, historians to packaged tours fresh off the 4 hr flight from europe and russia

felucca
or you can cruise the nile on one of these!

roof resteraunt
cool lighting eh

luxor at night
one of the main roads with luxor temple in the background

inside tomb
gold painted stars and heiroglyphics

King Tut
a board outlining the treasures found inside, real photos

Comments

[jill]

Amazing as usual
Kim and Bob Egpyt, The Luxor and The Nile!!!Amazing as usual! You always give me the biggest urge to travel with all your wicked pictures and journal entries! You guys are seriously having the experience of a lifetime! Take care and keep all the updates coming, I love reading them! Love jill