Luxor is an important site up the Nile from Cairo. It was known in the ancient Egyptian days as Thebes. On the east side of the river are Karnak Temple, home of the god Amun, and Luxor Temple, where Amun would go every year to make love to his wife, an event celebrated by townspeople with a big fertility festival. On the west side of the river are tombs of most of the Egyptian kings and queens, including Tutankhamen.
Luxor Museum
The Luxor Museum is a beautiful modern museum. It's small, but the pieces it has are impressive and impeccably displayed. And they let you take pictures (without flash). Some of the pictures I took were of the explanatory text, which I've transcribed where possible. More pictures...
Karnak Temple
Karnak Temple is the largest temple complex ever built by man, a temple to the god Amun. Shortly after we entered, we met someone who said he was a guide, but he took us so far off the beaten path that he seemed bogus and we eventually paid him to go away. More pictures...
Luxor Temple
The Luxor Temple was the center of the Festival of Opet. The god Amun, his wife Mut and their son Khonsu journeyed from Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple each year. More pictures...
The Theban Necropolis
On the west side of the Nile are the tombs of most of the kings and queens of ancient Egypt. We went in a package tour, just to see how the information we got compared to what we got on our own. Unfortunately, it wasn't much better. We went inside a handful of tombs, but unfortunately couldn't take any pictures there. More pictures...
Around Luxor
Luxor was a nice little town -- one of our best dinners on the trip was in an Egyptian restaurant there where with a couple of days notice the owner fixed us a huge Egyptian feast with molukkiya (a slimy vegetable served as a soup), lots of dips for pita bread, and "big chicken" (he couldn't remember the word for duck). More pictures...
