RELUCTANTLY WE MOVED OUR VIGIL from Thebes Hotel to the East Bank. Iberotel is more of a Western hotel with a great view of the Nile and within walking distance of Luxor Temple and—if you are ambitious like us—Karnak Temple. While we were out to dinner last night we took some photos of Luxor Temple illuminated for the nightly Light Show.
View across the Nile from Iberotel
Much has changed in Luxor since 2006, most of it for the better. The corniche along the Nile has been built up and covered with pavers. There are little pavilions for the weary and the road has been widened to several lanes and goes around the temple one-way. The temple enclosure separating the “real” world from the world of the gods has been upgraded and the entrance relocated. The cabbies, carriage drivers and felucca touts that accost you every few meters are constant reminders that this is still Egypt! Maybe later?
Avenue of the Sphinxes
Of course we were among the first to arrive at Luxor Temple this morning. Tourism is just a fraction of its pre-Covid numbers but it is still nice to have a venue all to ourselves, especially now that the Avenue of the Sphinxes has been restored. The temple was much as we remembered it—which isn’t always the case with my sieve-like memory. Even Alexander the Great, who claimed he was crowned in Luxor, was probably mistaken—he most likely never ventured south of Cairo. But there is evidence of Roman presence and even Napoleon paid a visit.
Luxor Temple and Obelisk
Luxor Temple Hypostyle Hall
I was more than a little disappointed in the condition of the site. Besides the usual rubbish of which there is plenty, construction debris is piled all over between the temple and the enclosure. With so many unemployed Egyptians it seems natural that a clean-up corps would be put to work. Maybe it’s a cultural thing.
Shame on you
We remembered the Luxor Museum to be charming and I guess it still is. We have traveled so far, learned so much and seen so many wonderful things since we were last here that Egypt may have slipped a few rungs on the “Wow! Scale.”
A Well-Traveled Mummy
Painted Sarcophagus
Visage of Akenaton
The Egyptians accomplished so much but little of it seems relevant. We don’t build pyramids, our architecture is Greek and Roman, we don’t write in hieroglyphics and their history, with a few exceptions, is on a different track than ours. The charm of Egypt is its antiquity, the notion that it was done in the first place and the fact that it remains today.
