Today and yesterday we have been doing sites of great historic interest. The first day we went to the Luxor Temple for sunset, pretty grand, but the next two days' visits made the Luxor temple look quite small and restrained.
Yesterday we went in a small minibus with a charming guide called Al a Din and his driver who was called Mohammed. We were picked up at our hotel at 8.15, along with three young men from Armenia (you meet so many different nationalities whilst traveling), the bus filled up at other hotels and then we all went off to - Valley of the Kings to visit tombs and to two temples and a couple of huge statues in the middle of a site that is being excavated. The stuff we are seeing is so overwhelmingly large, decorated and beautiful that I haven't got enough superlatives to describe it, so I am pretty much going to leave it at that.
Today we got a service taxi out to the temple of Karnak which is the most vast site, we spent about two and a half hours wandering around and again it defies description, vast forests of pillars that are immensely tall. Carvings, obilisks, pylons (these are huge gate ways) and enough broken bits to keep an army of archaeologists working for many years to come.
We walked back to Luxor town along the corniche (no small change, so couldn't take a service taxi and we are not good at haggling yet) We went to the Luxor museum and were very impressed. It is quite expensive to get in, but very interesting with some absolutly wonderful small sculptures and lots of interesting things like bows and arrows, architects drawings, 3,500 year old bits of linen and all sorts of other stuff.
On the way back to the Hotel we called at the train staion and managed to get 2 first class tickets to Cairo tonight. We catch the train at 11 pm and arrive in Cairo about 7 am, ticket price 10.00 English each. Yesterday we tried and a very glum man told us no tickets, today a different man, all smiles, tickets available, when do you want to go?
Tessa
Today we got a service taxi out to the temple of Karnak which is the most vast site, we spent about two and a half hours wandering around and again it defies description, vast forests of pillars that are immensely tall. Carvings, obilisks, pylons (these are huge gate ways) and enough broken bits to keep an army of archaeologists working for many years to come.
We walked back to Luxor town along the corniche (no small change, so couldn't take a service taxi and we are not good at haggling yet) We went to the Luxor museum and were very impressed. It is quite expensive to get in, but very interesting with some absolutly wonderful small sculptures and lots of interesting things like bows and arrows, architects drawings, 3,500 year old bits of linen and all sorts of other stuff.
On the way back to the Hotel we called at the train staion and managed to get 2 first class tickets to Cairo tonight. We catch the train at 11 pm and arrive in Cairo about 7 am, ticket price 10.00 English each. Yesterday we tried and a very glum man told us no tickets, today a different man, all smiles, tickets available, when do you want to go?
Tessa
2 comments:
Luxor sounds brill. With everybody tramping about, I wonder if they're getting worried about erosion? Or maybe the winds just smooth it all out every night anyway? :)
Yes, the variable quality of travel officials is always something that amazes me. I mean to say, why on earth do some officials simply deny the existence of some things and yet other officials are as nice as pie!
So, when you get to Cairo, you'll be changing all your large denomination notes into single, yes? ;)
how right you are Brian we were discussing only earlier that we have to go into a bank and get the supply of Backsheesh - we even had to tip a tourist policeman at the Luxor station last night!
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