Egypt's Temple of Luxor Holiday and Sightseeing Guides and Photos.

Many of Luxor's tombs and temples are located on the West Bank side of the Nile but Luxor does have two magnificent temple sites on it's East Bank which are easy to find and well worth visiting whilst on holiday in Egypt.

These Egyptian Temples are at Karnak (around 3km from Luxor) and there is also Luxor Temple which is located right in the centre of the city opposite the River Nile.
Amenophis III commenced the building of Luxor Temple to celebrate the Festival of Opet around 1400BC and then Rameses II added a Court some time later.. The City authorities floodlight Luxor Temple in the evening to show it's magnificent granite pillars and it is a really beautifull sight - the Temple is open until around 9PM.
Also good views can actually be acheived from the pavement outside the complex beside the River Nile since in a way you get a better overall view of the site - we took quite a few photographs from around there.

Compared to the massive Karnak complex Luxor Temple seems somewhat small - in hindsight we should have visited Karnak last of all on our sightseeing because it just dwarfs all the other temple sights. However we certainly did enjoy walking round Luxor's Temple - it really is very impressive in it's own right.

The entrance to the Temple of Luxor is located fairly near to the Winter Palace, about halfway along the paved area beside The Nile. If you wish you can have a guide to take you round and explain everything - one will certainly try and attach himself to you as soon as you enter the site, however in our case we just like wandering around, being ever more impressed with the sheer side of the pillars and the beauty of the drawings and taking our photographs of it all.

It is of course useful to have some information about what you are seeing and we think one book is particularly good - "The Illustrated Guide to Luxor, Tombs, Temples and Museums" by Kent R. Weeks is listed as ISBN 977-424-800-7. It is possible that this book can only be purchased in the Middle East - we got ours in Luxor for 200LE (after a bit of haggling of course).

Colonade built by Amenhepet III Abu Al-Haggag Mosque Shrine of Alexander the Great and Hypostyle Hall

As would be expected at such maignifcent sites there are plenty of coach trips which have Luxor Temple on their itinerary and the groups being led around can make it pretty busy, however most of these seem to be gone by around midday and the area becomes quieter with mostly just us "do it yourselfers" around, then it all starts getting busy again around 3 o'clock.
There are quite a few sphynx which have been excavated on the site - some of these sphynx's are damaged but there are a few fairly intact ones to be found.
Originally a thousand ram-headed Spynx lined the 2.5km long causeway between Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple - this route was used for religious processions between the two Temples.

Please visit our Home Page for lots more photos and topics about the area around Luxor or if you fancy some more Egyptian Travel and great sunshine and beaches you may be interested in our Sharm El Sheikh Holiday and Travel Guide. There are also topics from both Cairo and Aswan.

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