East Bank of Luxor - Day 11

The big ticket attractions on the East Bank are the Karnak Temple Complex and 3400-year-old Luxor Temple.

Karnak is the second largest ancient religious site in the world, after the Angkor Wat Temple in Cambodia. The most important place of worship in Egypt during the New Kingdom, Karnak was in a continuous state of development for nearly 1500 years.

Karnak Temple, the second largest ancient religious site in the world, is mind-blowing. It is so impressive that any other temple in Egypt pales in comparison. 

In awe with the Karnak Temple complex, I kept wandering off from my family and guide.

The most impressive part of Karnak Temple are the giant columns of the Great Hypostyle Hall. The columns held up a flat roof before the invention of more advanced roof systems like vaulted ceilings and arches.

The Great Hypostyle Hall's twelve massive sandstone columns in the center tower over you at 69 feet and are carved with brightly painted relief decorations from floor to ceiling.

With the center of the hall taller than the spaces on either side, the Egyptians allowed for clerestory lighting which was the only way to get light into the otherwise dark interior.

Pictures don't do justice for depicting the size of the temple. The clerestory windows in the center of the photo are ~26 feet tall! The whole temple dwarfs you.

Luxor Temple, largely built by the New Kingdom pharaohs Amenhotep III (1390–1352 BC) and Ramses II (1279– 1213 BC), is a striking monument in the heart of modern day Luxor. When the Nile flooded, Egyptians celebrated the feast of Opet with a procession along the Avenue of Sphinxes carrying statues of the gods from Karnak to Luxor.

Kings erected obelisks in pairs but only one stands now at the entrance of Luxor Temple.  The twin obelisk missing was gifted to Paris and now stands in the Place de la Concorde. 

Fun Fact: After being stolen or gifted, more Egyptian obelisks now exist outside of Egypt.

Luxor Temple includes a mosque that was built in 1284.

The walkable 3km-long Avenue of Sphinxes connects Karnak to Luxor with over 1000 statues. The 15-year project to uncover the entire distance from sand and modern buildings was recently completed in 2021. 

The best preserved section of the Avenue of Sphinxes in front of Luxor Temple has been uncovered since 1949.

After touring the temples on Luxor's West Bank, we flew to Cairo, the capital of Egypt.

We could hardly contain our excitement to see the pyramids for the first time, even in the dark. "Is that it?" We wondered if our eyes were playing tricks on us.  Behind the buildings we thought we could make out a dark, triangular shape.

Night view from our hotel balcony in Giza

Logistics:

Our guide said that the East Bank temples get busy at 10:00am and again at 3:30pm with the hordes of tours arriving on day tours from Red Sea, 4 hours away. Half the tours start in the morning on each bank, and then switch in the afternoon.

Luxor is the city in Egypt where you take a hot air balloon ride. I've always wanted to go on one, and was contemplating doing it here (for only $80). However, the decision was made for me; the hot air balloon rides were cancelled (supposedly due to weather) on both mornings of our stay in Luxor.

Although our hotel in Giza was a far cry from fancy, I much preferred it - particularly its view - to the chaos we found in Cairo.