Flight Centre’s Erin Davie jumps in to continue her blog series about Egypt with more vacation and holiday ideas. In part two Erin visits Luxor, Karnak, and hops on a felucca. Take it away Erin -

We arrived at the Giza train station and prepared to board for the 9 hour journey to Luxor. I have been on overnight trains in other countries and this trip was a very pleasant surprise. We were served dinner in our little room and when we finished our attendant set up our beds for us. At one point in the evening we had 7 people squeezed into one tiny room for a makeshift cocktail party. In the morning, we were woken up about 5:30am in time to watch the sun rise over the Nile. We were served our breakfast and I ate while sitting cross legged on my top bunk. When we got off the train in Luxor at 6:30am it was already hot; a sign of the blistering heat that was to come. We arrived at our hotel, The Steigenberger Nile Palace Hotel, which was a beautiful 5 star property. Our balcony had an amazing view of the Nile and, in the distance, the hills surrounding the Valley of the Kings. The entire group stood in awe of the luxurious surroundings.

The first temple we visited was Karnak, an amazing sight and absolutely massive. The huge pillars soar over 10 meters into the air with every surface engraved with hieroglyphs, pictures of pharaohs, and names of kings and queens. The amazing colours can still be seen on some of the more protected surfaces. These carvings and paintings have lasted over 3000 years! This was one of the temples used in the filming of Indiana Jones and it’s easy to see why as the temple looks like a movie set. It seems impossible that these feats of engineering could have been pulled off in ancient times.

Now, as amazing as these sights are, one thing that always looms over you when in Luxor during the day is the intense heat. Hot is an understatement as it was over 40 degrees Celsius. It’s like they built these temples on the surface of the sun, like holding a hot hairdryer in your face, like your skin is melting… you get the picture. I can only imagine what it is like further south.

After the temple was some much needed down time back at the hotel, a quick swim in the pool, and a snack in a café. The banks of the Nile was the most scenic place I’ve ever eaten a pizza! That evening we all boarded a felucca which is a sail powered boat the Egyptians have used to cruise the Nile since ancient times. We watched the sun set behind the mountains on the western shores while heading down the river to our next historical sight, the temple of Luxor.

Visiting this temple at night provided to be an amazingly different experience to the one earlier in the day. As the last light of the day faded we walked down the long stairs leading to the main entrance of the temple. The entrance was guarded by two huge statues of Ramesses II and a towering Obelisk. The up-lit statues seemed to come alive with shadows. It was wonderful wandering around the temple in the pleasant 30 C temperatures of the evening. The yellow light made the soaring walls which were covered in textured stories easier to view. I would recommend seeing this temple at night as it was absolutely magical.

The location of Luxor in Egypt is highlighted on the Flight Centre travel map.

Erin Davie is an International Travel Consultant with Flight Centre based in Toronto, Ontario at the Holt Renfrew store and can be reached at 1 866 662 6289.

Categories: Destinations

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Destinations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.