Day 4: Karnak and Luxor

Today we left Giza at 5:00 AM and caught a flight to Luxor.  We got on our ship that will be cruising the Nile starting tomorrow.  It’s a very weird, but really nice ship.  It seems to have a turn of the century French theme, which I don’t get at all for a Nile cruise.

It even has a swimming pool on the sun deck.

There were all kinds of items floating down the Nile including fisherman and this egret hitching a ride on a pile of junk.

After lunch we went out with our guide Ahmed, to walk the Karnak temple, which was built to honor the god Amun Ra.  There are tons of Pharaohs who ruled from this site including King Tut and Ramses II.   We entered with through a colonnade of ram sphinxes.  Very impressive.

Here’s Amun Ra.

And Ramses II with his daughter. 

Hatshepsut’s Obelisk--the only female Pharaoh.

The carving on the walls of the temple were everywhere.  It was so exciting to see this up close.

There were a series of 130 columns that all had carvings.

We then went to the Luxor Temple.  It was equally as amazing at Karnak.  It’s so wonderful to see what’s been preserved up close.  Much of it because it was covered in sand for centuries.

I can't believe we are seeing these artifacts in their natural environment and not in a museum.  It's breath taking.