Ancient Thebes! The name fills me with dreams of temples and mummies. But it’s not like in a Agatha Christie novel – and for good reason.
I spent a week (Yes, a whole week only in Luxor) in Luxor with my mom. It was quite a more strenuous trip than expected… So why did I go to and stay in Luxor? Well, to explore a bucket-list place: The Valley of the Kings which made the whole thing worth it – as you can read in Must-See Temples and Tombs In Valley of the Kings! And the the famous temple of Karnak in the city.
So join me for a city rarely explored in depth and for travel tips and tricks to ancient Thebes.
EXPLORING LUXOR
Luxor or ancient Thebes is located right by the River Nile surrounded by palm trees and desert. The city is actually called al-Uqsur (say it fast and it sounds like Luxor) meaning the “Palaces” or “fortifications”.
Luxor is a big (relatively) normal Egyptian city with over 500.000 citizens, traffic, street vendors and dusty roads.
The city of Luxor is divided into the east bank and the west bank. The west bank is where Valley of the Kings and the other temples are located, but the east bank has the fantastic Karnak temple, Luxor temple and the Luxor museum. The city is also divided by the river with the west much more calm and with more backpacker hostels close to the tombs, and the more noisy east side with the bigger hotels.
You might think, that this is a relatively rich city. But it’s like all the money from the tourists don’t stay in the country. Maybe it’s because all the tourists come in packs, and then all the cash ends up in some foreign travel agencies pockets. Or maybe nobody does like me and stay in Luxor, but just pops in for a short look.Â
WHAT TO SEE IN LUXOR
But let us get to the reason why we came: the sights!
There is of course a reason why tourists still visit ancient Thebes and Egypt, and why this is a huge UNESCO site called the world’s largest open-air museum. And you know: I love museums…
Ancient Thebes is/was were the god Amun lived. Actually! On the west bank are all the temples and tombs, but there is also something to be said for the east bank with the city of Luxor, the temple of Karnak and Luxor Museum.
Karnak Temple Complex
After the pyramids, this is the most visited place in Egypt. It actually consists of several temples, and the site is huge. It is the second largest religious complex in the world (after Angkor) and the temple of Amun-Ra is the largest religious building – ever!
The Karnak Complex sees many visitors, so we visited from 15-17 just getting the late afternoon light. The buses with day trippers are gone at that time.
It can be a little difficult to locate the most important carvings and, so think a bout hiring a guide. Its 100 LE for one hour, and the ones we heard were educated and well speaking, so I would recommend a guide for the first hour and then an hour to yourself just soaking up the atmosphere. The entrance fee is 120 LE – higher than stated in LP.
You can easily walk to Karnak from Luxor, but I recommend taking a taxi one way and walking the other to save time. Walk along the Corniche – the stretch between the temple and Luxor museum is very nice and hassle free with small cafes and restaurant by the Nile.
If you walk the way back to Luxor, you’ll have the sunset over the Nile. Between Karnak and Luxor is a 3 km long Sphinx-road being excavated now. It will be cool, when it’s finished.
Luxor Temple
Luxor Temple is located right in the middle of the city. Construction of the temple was begun by the pharaoh Amenhotep III (1390-52 BC) and built by Tutankhamen (1336-27 BC) and Horemheb (1323-1295 BC) and then added to by Rameses II (1279-13 BC).
There is 1 huge pink granite obelisk, but there used to be 2. The second is in Paris in Place de la Concorde, so I will definitely see that again. We arrived at 11.00, which is the worst time of the day, if you want to avoid the day trippers. But actually, there were not that many people. It’s not as big as Karnak, but part of the same story of devotion to the God Amun-Ra.
If you dine out in Luxor in the evenings, you’ll see Luxor temple light up as the first photograph shows.
Luxor Museum
Located on the corniche across from the west bank of the River Nile, the Luxor Museum is an archaeological treasure trove – or a hidden gem not really hidden, but overlooked. The two-story museum was inaugurated in 1975 and is an older model and very small compared to Cairo. But the museum has a quite impressive collection of artefacts unrivalled in quality. It’s just masterpieces…
The highlights in the museum are
- grave goods from the tomb of Tutankhamun.
- 26 New Kingdom statues, discovered buried at the nearby Luxor Temple in 1989.
- The royal mummies of 2 pharaohs – Ahmose I and Ramesses I
- the reconstructed wall from Akhenaten’s temple at Karnak.
- a calcite double statue, representing pharaoh Amenhotep III and the crocodile god Sobek.
Once again the opening hours and the fee are not like in LP, so check. The museum cost 120 LE and all signs are in English. Most tour group diss this place, so it’s pretty quiet.
The corniche
Just like most other Arabic and Middle Eastern cities, Luxor has a corniche – a pleasant walkway along a river. In this case it’s the River Nile
The corniche is a great place to hang out, watch the boats on the Nile and of course the sunset.
Longing for the Nile? Winding down with on a felucca on the Nile.
TRAVEL TIPS TO LUXOR, EGYPT
Egypt is very different from many other countries I’ve visited. It’s a little like Morocco with a touch of Jordan, but the hassling made it one of the worst countries I have been a tourist in. So here are some good advice when visiting.
Hassling
It is not without reason, that Luxor is called the hassle capital. Walking along the Corniche is the worst place. This is where the most aggressive hasslers are. Some of the Egyptians I talked to said that business was still bad, although this last year it was getting better. This makes the sellers very desperate. It was so bad, that even though we wanted to buy some souvenirs we didn’t; even though we were tired we just said no to all taxi drivers – and then nobody is happy. Even the kids yelled “Money” at us. I know they do it for survival, but it is scaring the money away.
But we kept paying overprice, because of the constant hassling and you can’t stop up and think, you just say no until you give up and say yes and then you don’t get what you really want. This culture throws me off even though I have tried it before.
Just take a deep breath, look like you know what you’re doing and remember they’re just trying to feed their kids like the rest of us…
SAFETY ⇓
Before going one of my friends told my she wouldn’t go without a man. And she is not so easily scared. So, I was actually nervous, even though I always try to insist that women can do everything, and I will not get hurt. But fortunately, we didn’t feel really threatened, but it does set a more intimidating vibe when you mainly see men. (Almost everyone in the tourist industry are men.) But we were yelled at: Habibi and other things. Even small kids would call us names. But everyone are really nice, if you get pass the money issue!
The dress code is very conservative. If you can wear long trousers and a loose long-sleeved shirt and a hat. Since most tourists in Luxor are pensioners, they are modestly dressed anyway. But still… You can of course insist on your right to dress as you like – especially as a woman – but you will definitely not feel comfortable and blend in. Actually – don’t just modestly – dress for dust and trash!
But there must be some danger. When we arrived by bus to the city borders, the police insisted we were followed by a police convoy to the hotel. There are also police and security check along the road and in hotels and museums and temples. And you get your bag checked before entering anything.
An traffic is of course as expected, which doesn’t bother my anymore, but my mom was quite disturbed…
MONEY ⇓
Bakshees! This means tip. Always have small Egyptians notes like 5 and 10. This may sound obvious, but before we even reached our hotel, we had to tip 3 different guys; the chauffeur, the toilet guy and the guy taking our luggage. And it is difficult to get the money. We only one time had a coin of 1 LE and only two times had a 5 note.
Note than foreigners pay way more in entrance fess than Egyptians, but that’s fine with me. Note that all entrance fees are higher than in LP.
SOUVENIRS ⇓
There are of course many souvenirs to buy, but the hassling really kept ours to a minimum. The Aboudi bookstore has been around for 100 years and has everything. There is a café on top with good lemonade and a fantastic view of Luxor temple. The window even a have small square you can open to get a picture through the glass. I bought a fantastic book with Ancient Egyptians poems like “the tale of Sinuhe”.
The vendors everywhere will try to sell you everything between heaven and earth and their old grandmother…I bought a small crocodile sculpture for my son, a Hammam towel in Egyptian cotton and a ring with a scarab. Also buy embroided bags, gold, bread and leather.
WAYFINDING ⇓
What was also quite typically of our trip to Egypt was signs to places, that didn’t exist anymore. There was supposed to be a tourist information near the train station, but the huge building was empty. The information in the train station didn’t really have any information. The lounge in the airport wasn’t there…
Often the roads are one-way, there are no It is very difficult to find your way. I used maps.me which was very helpful to navigate the backstreets, that aren’t in any maps. Because of the hassling make sure you know where you going and don’t stop. When you get off the tourist spot it gets easier. I use the app maps.me for detailed maps offline.
OPENING HOURS ⇓
Opening hours in LP from 2015 are not completely up to date. Usually I double check beforehand, but the internet at the hotel was so bad, that we relied on it. This meant we reached Luxor museum in their not-scheduled lunch break. Then when we reached Karnak, and they closed an hour earlier than expected. So be updated.
WHERE TO STAY & EAT IN LUXOR
It’s been a while since I visited, so more hotels might have been built and the restaurants are probably not the same, but I’ll mention them anyway.
The Winter Palace is the most elegant hotel in the city -and in Egypt maybe. This is where Agatha Christie wrote her “Death on the Nile”, which really fuelled my Egyptian dreams! It’s right in the middle of the city, but with a huge wonderful garden and a really nice pool. It was built by the British (of course) and it’s just as foreign as the Victoria Falls Hotel in Zimbabwe.
We wanted an easy trip with peace and quiet and a the possibility of swimming, so we stayed at Jolie Ville Kings Island 5 km south of Luxor. This was way too all-inclusive like for me, but the good thing was the peace and quiet, since it’s on an island. Also many of the guest was Arabic speaking and probably Egyptian, so it’s a nice reminder of where you are. There was also many Chinese tourist though.
If you want something else, check it out here at Hotels.com (all the hotel links are affiliated links: you pay the same, but I get some of the profit for my travels).
Food is delicious in Egypt. Think falafel, hummus, salad, grilled meat and great bread. Everything you love about the Middle Eastern kitchen.
By the Nefertiti hotel is a restaurant Al sahaby Restaurant. Its on a side street from the souq. You can sit at street level on or at the rooftop terrace with a view of Luxor temple. They have nice meals at a reasonable price. It was the only place, we met individual travellers (2 people).
Sofra Restaurant is close to the train station and the most expensive place we ate at. I’s beautifully decorated and with very friendly staff. It’s good, but we preferred Al Sahaby since with so few travellers, this place was almost empty- also it was more expensive than the latter.
Egyptian breakfast is lots of bread, baladi salad, greens and kind of porridge. Also the Egyptian falafel made of fava beans was a breakfast treat. For dessert go for the rice pudding or the Kanaafa.
Note there is not alcohol of course, but you can get decent non-alcoholic beer, if you get tired of the delicious lemonades.
Rounding up on Luxor
After all this history, why was is not an amazing place for a cultural traveller? My experience is that the touting is next level aggressive and unpleasant. A young kid even spat at us and called something I assume was a curse word for not giving him money. Another dragged us to see his half-dead mule to try to get money to feed the poor animal.
The reason behind the heavy begging and selling is that there are not as many tourists as you might think, despite the city being the gateway to the tombs of the pharaohs. Since a massacre in 1997 where 97 people died, balloon crashes and later attacks, the tourists are staying away. Despite it has been 11 years! Since then COVID happened, so I’m imagining it’s still bad. And their livelihood depend on it!
So in conclusion: You should definitely go and spend as much time as you can, but only if you’re a long time mummy fan.
Have you been to Luxor recently?
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Looks like you had an amazing time…especially on the food front! I love Egypt, such a magical place with great people. Never ventured to Luxor though but this makes me want to go. 🙂
Yes, foood…I’m glad I didn’t scare anyone away 🙂
I’m so glad I traveled to Egypt when I did, in 2008, before the Arab Spring. With all of the political turmoil, protests, destruction of cultural relics & World Heritage sites in the past decade across the entire region, it just proves again that it’s better to see and experience things sooner rather than later. And that doesn’t even take into account places at risk from other human activities and Mother Nature: rising sea levels (Venice, Miami), severe hurricanes (St Martin, Tortola), wildfires (Napa Valley), flooding (New Orleans), earthquakes (Sichuan), oceanic acidification (Palancar, Réserve Cousteau), and so on…!
I ‘m also glad I visited Cuba several years ago. Yes, definitely sooner than later! I work at a UNESCO site, and we are are trying to make a seminar on the destruction of sites.
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