Luxor, Egypt

We had planned to just do a half day of touristing today, all in town, so there was no rush to finish breakfast. We still wanted to get out earlier than later to beat the heat, but we weren’t on a clock.

So I had a 2nd cup of tea at breakfast and relaxed.

Caught the ferry across to the east bank. It’s only a 30 minute walk from the ferry to Karnak, on a beautiful boardwalk beside the Nile. The weather was nice so we decided to walk instead of taking a taxi.

Just as well because there was a kids running event along the boardwalk and the roads were closed. We saw the start of the run, although I think it was more a participation thing than an actual race. Half the kids stopped to say Hello! as they ran past.

Got to Karnak and through the stalls to the visitor centre. It was very easy to buy tickets, nowhere near as busy or complicated as the Valley of the Kings.

There were busloads of tourists already inside, but the ruins are so large that it wasn’t crowded.

We entered and then veered off to the right, following signs pointing to Temple of Khonsu, mostly because there was no one else going that way. (Yes, it was the path less tread).

The path led through ruin pieces carefully labelled for eventual reconstruction, to the Temple of Khonsu, about 300m from the main Karnak ruins of Temple of Amun-Ra.

Walked back to the Temple of Amun-Ra and wandered around. Most impressive was the Great Hypostyle Hall with a forest of giant pillars.

Next up for our day was the Luxor Museum. It’s about half way between the ferry and Karnak so we just walked over. The museum is easy to navigate and has really cool artefacts from the sites we had seen, with proper environment controls.

We walked down one of the main drags, Al Mahata, in search of a little lunch spot. Found a busy little place and had a some falafel sandwiches, which were really tasty.

Walked through the souq, bought some overpriced dried hibiscus for making tea, and then took the ferry back to the west bank.

We had booked dinner at our hotel again, this time a beef with okra and tomato tagen (similar style of cooking to a Moroccan tajine). It was excellent as usual.

The evening and night were warmer than when we first arrived, their cool spell seemed to be ending. We only really fell asleep once it cooled down around 2am.