Visit Luxor, Egypt: Karnak, the Valley of the Kings & the Nile

Karnak, at the northern end of the town and the great sanctuary of the god Amun, is not one temple but a walled precinct of temples, chapels, pylons and obelisks to which about 30 pharaohs added over some 2,000 years. The visit begins on the side facing the river, where an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes leads to the first pylon, and continues into the Great Hypostyle Hall: 134 sandstone columns in 16 rows, the twelve of the central aisle far taller than the rest and crowned with open papyrus capitals, their shafts and the walls around them carved with reliefs. Daylight falls into the hall through stone window grilles high above the central aisle. Beyond it stand the obelisks of Thutmose I and Hatshepsut, hers a single shaft of Aswan granite 29.5 metres tall, and to the south lies the Sacred Lake, where the priests purified themselves.

Karnak takes at least two to three hours and rewards a second visit. Early morning, before the tour groups arrive, is the quietest time, and the open courts offer little shade by midday. Inside the precinct, the Open Air Museum, where chapels rebuilt from blocks recovered from the pylons stand reassembled, is entered on a separate ticket. In the evening the Sound and Light Show lights the courts and the hypostyle hall, its audience walking through the temple before taking seats beside the Sacred Lake.

Luxor Temple, built mainly by Amenhotep III and Ramesses II for the yearly Opet festival, when the statue of Amun was carried here from Karnak, stands in the centre of town on the Corniche, the road along the river. Seated colossi of Ramesses II and a single obelisk stand before its pylon; the obelisk's twin has stood on the Place de la Concorde in Paris since 1836. Inside, the Mosque of Abu al-Haggag, still in use, sits on top of the first court: it was built when the temple lay buried under the town, and its old door now hangs high above the excavated floor. The temple is floodlit after dark, and a visit at dusk, as the lights come on, or later in the evening, when the tour groups have gone, sees the sandstone at its best. From the temple's entrance the Avenue of Sphinxes, the processional way to Karnak, runs 2.7 km north through the town, lined with human-headed sphinxes at the Luxor Temple end and ram-headed ones near Karnak, and it can be walked at night under lights.

The East Bank town lives along the Corniche, which runs past Luxor Temple, the moorings of the cruise boats and the large hotels, and fills with walkers and families at dusk as the heat goes out of the day. The souk, a short walk from Luxor Temple, sells spices, scarves, galabiyas and souvenirs, and coffeehouses serve tea and shisha at pavement tables. Touts, boat captains and the drivers of calèches, the horse-drawn carriages that work the Corniche, are persistent in Luxor: a firm “la shukran” — no thanks — answers an offer that is not wanted, and any price is agreed before the ride or the sail begins. Around the monuments the hassle follows the pattern of the scams known across Egypt: a favour nobody asked for, then a demand for money.

The Valley of the Kings (Wadi al-Muluk) is a dry valley in the desert hills behind the cliffs of the West Bank, where the pharaohs of the New Kingdom were buried for nearly five centuries, from the 16th to the 11th century BCE. Instead of pyramids they were given rock-cut tombs: corridors driven deep into the limestone, descending through painted halls to a burial chamber, their entrances hidden. More than 60 tombs and pits have been found, and the royal tombs are painted with the texts and images meant to guide the king through the night — along the whole length of Seti I's tomb (KV17), and on the astronomical ceiling of Ramesses VI's (KV9), where the sky goddess Nut swallows the sun at dusk and gives birth to it at dawn. Tutankhamun's tomb (KV62) is one of the smallest in the valley and the one royal burial found largely intact, by Howard Carter in 1922; its treasures are shown at the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza.

The site ticket covers a set number of tombs, chosen from those open that day; the tombs open to visitors rotate to spread the wear of breath, heat and humidity on the paintings, and the most famous, Tutankhamun's and Seti I's among them, are each entered on a separate ticket. Arrive at opening time: the valley is a bowl of bare rock with almost no shade, it heats fast through the morning, and the tomb corridors turn stuffy once the tour groups fill them. The valley lies deep in the hills, so the usual way up is by taxi or with a driver hired for the West Bank day, and Hatshepsut's temple, on the far side of the same ridge, fits into that morning.

The mortuary temple of Hatshepsut, the queen who ruled as pharaoh, rises in three colonnaded terraces joined by long ramps against a sheer wall of cliffs at Deir el-Bahari. Along its colonnades, reliefs show her trading expedition to the land of Punt, with ships loaded with incense trees, and the story of her divine birth. The temple faces east across the fields, and its terraces lie in full sun, so it is best seen early.

Two seated statues of Amenhotep III, about 18 metres high, stand alone in the fields beside the main road from the river to the hills: the Colossi of Memnon, the gatekeepers of his largely vanished mortuary temple and a stop of a few minutes on the way past. Greek and Roman visitors named them after Memnon, a hero of the Trojan War, once the northern statue, cracked by an earthquake, began to give out a sound at dawn. The Ramesseum, the mortuary temple of Ramesses II, is half ruined, and the toppled granite colossus of the king lies in pieces in its court — the statue that Shelley's “Ozymandias” is associated with. Medinet Habu, the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at the southern end of the West Bank sites, stands far more complete, its pylons and outer walls carved with battle scenes and its inner courts with deep-cut reliefs that keep much of their colour.

In the hills behind Medinet Habu, the Valley of the Queens holds the tombs of royal wives and children, and its draw is the tomb of Nefertari, the principal wife of Ramesses II, whose painted walls keep colours that look freshly laid; it is entered on a separate ticket. On the hillside between the Ramesseum and Deir el-Bahari, the Tombs of the Nobles were cut for the officials and priests of Thebes, and their small painted chambers show the life around the court — harvests, banquets, fishing and fowling in the marshes. They draw a fraction of the crowds in the Valley of the Kings.

A felucca, the Nile's wooden sailing boat, leaves from landings on both banks for a sail of an hour or two, priced for the whole boat, so the price and the length of the sail are agreed before boarding. Late afternoon is the time to go, as the light turns low over the Theban Hills and the sun sets behind the West Bank. Longer sails stop at Banana Island, a plantation island where the boats tie up among palms and banana groves.

Hot-air balloons take off from the West Bank before sunrise and drift over the fields, the mortuary temples and the edge of the desert as the sun comes up behind the East Bank. Pick-ups come in the dark, and flights depend on the wind, so a launch can be called off on the morning itself.

Two temples north of Luxor make a long day by car with a driver, and the two are often combined. At Dendera, about 60 km north, the Temple of Hathor stands complete to its roof, and its hypostyle hall keeps a painted astronomical ceiling; the circular zodiac in a chapel on the roof is a cast, and the original is in the Louvre in Paris. At Abydos, about 160 km north, the Temple of Seti I is known for the finely carved, painted reliefs on its walls.

Luxor International Airport (LXR), east of the town, takes domestic flights from Cairo, about an hour in the air, and international flights, many of them seasonal charters. The overnight sleeper train from Cairo takes about ten hours and arrives at the station in the middle of the East Bank town, within walking distance of many hotels. Whether to fly or take the sleeper train comes down to speed against a travel day turned into a night on board. Cruise boats moor along the Corniche, so an arrival by river ends in the middle of town.

The public ferry is the everyday crossing, running back and forth through the day between the Corniche in front of Luxor Temple and the West Bank landing, and private motorboats wait at the same landings to cross on demand. The road bridge lies south of the town, so a taxi between the East Bank and the West Bank sites takes a long loop. On the West Bank, taxis and drivers wait at the ferry landing for a day's circuit of the sites, and bicycles suit the flat plain between the fields and the temples, though not the long climb to the Valley of the Kings in the heat. On the East Bank, Karnak lies at the far end of town from Luxor Temple, a short taxi or calèche ride; taxis are unmetered, so the fare is agreed before getting in.