Luxor, Egypt

Another transit day, from Cairo to Luxor. Our flight was at 7:30am so we booked a taxi for 5am. I woke up at 2am and then was worried about sleeping through my alarm so only had two hours sleep :(

We had a not-very-nutritious breakfast at the airport. It’s a short flight to Luxor, enough time to get a tea but not nearly enough time to drink it.

The airport folks were very efficient in Luxor. We were out of the airport in less than 30 minutes! The drive to our hotel was longer than to the city cause we’re staying at a B&B on the west bank and had to drive south some distance for a bridge.

The hotel was pretty quick too - we were able to get early check-in and so had pretty much the whole day!

We’re the only guests at the hotel, even though it’s getting into busy season, I think because it’s mostly tour groups which wouldn’t fit here. We’ve seen very few independent travelers.

Had a great lunch at the hotel and then took a five minute ferry ride to the east bank to see Luxor Temple. There are many people offering boat rides across, but the ferry is much more comfortable and only 5 EGP each (about 25c).

We walked almost 360* around Luxor Temple to find the entrance. Finally figured it out.

Luxor Temple was pretty amazing, and it’s not even a top attraction in Luxor according to the Lonely Planet. We both felt it was more impressive than the ruins we saw in Rome. It was getting later in the day and we had the ruins to ourselves.

We had an errand to get local cash, found ATMs near the big hotels in the Nile.

Took the ferry back to the west bank, and called it our sunset cruise on the Nile. There’s a huge difference in feel between the west and east banks. The west is way more laid back.

Earlier in the afternoon we had walked down to the main intersection in town (about five minutes) to get water. On the way back we passed by a restaurant with rotisserie chicken and a big grill on the front sidewalk. It looked tasty so we ordered pigeon and a half chicken for dinner (the restaurant needs lead time for both). Pigeon is popular here in Egypt, we’ve seen it on a few menus. Took some pics so we’d remember what the place looked like.

So after getting back from the east bank we washed up and headed back to the restaurant. I don’t think they get many tourists as they made a big splash for us. The food was all excellent. Pigeon tasted like chicken, it’s served like a stuffed Cornish hen.

I was starting to fade so we headed home and crashed.