Luxor

This will be quick, though it was a huge day, but it’s almost 10pm and am dying to shower and go to bed….as usual up early - breakfast at 6am, bags ready outside the door at 6.30 and ready to leave at 7am…it’s a hard life being a tourist! The bags went with us on the bus as we have now left the boat…(and are now ensconced in a fab hotel for one night).

So our first stop was the Valley of the Kings….we had tickets to go into 3 tombs, and a special ticket for Tutankhamen’s. This was good, as we saw 3 of the best, plus king Tut. They are quite hard work as you climb down and up…some are highly decorated, and some less so…Tutankhamen was not very painted until the inner room, where there is his mummy!! It was also rather hot and stuffy in there too, so always a relief to emerge. But that was always an amazing experience, and then we had a stop at an alabaster shop where they make vases and ornaments, but we didn’t buy them (some did) but it was a fun diversion.

Then off to Hatshepsut temple which always looks as if it was designed and built a few years ago - does not look like an ancient temple. This is my third sighting of this wonderful building, and I was a little disappointed to learn today that part of the reason it looks so perfect is because it was rebuilt from the rubble they found and faithfully correct - it was a Polish project in the mid 20th century - I had thought it had withstood millenia intact!

On the way back we paused at the Colossi of Memnon….HUGE….everything is huge here! Then by lunchtime we were delivered to our hotel, and this was certainly not a Fawltey Towers experience. It is very beautiful - the Nile Palace by Steigenberger…and we were in our rooms very efficiently, even though we were before checkin time. Our room has a balcony overlooking the Nile and it is sad that we leave tomorrow morning to fly back to Cairo. But meanwhile we are enjoying it. We had a late substantial lunch here at a Lebanese restaurant to stand us in good stead as we’d signed up for the Son et Lumière at Karnak tonight.

In the interval till then a few of us walked to the Winter Palace, a very classy and now expensive hotel which was about a 15 min walk away. Amr, Michael and I stayed there in 1988, it is old world elegance and just lovely…and has a beautiful garden where we sat and had a gin and tonic. Very relaxing. Sally and John, Evie and Peter Walmsley came with us. They got a taxi back, but it’s only 1.25 kms and took us 17 minutes…I haven’t been satisfying my Apple Watch with walking, so it was a chance to do a little…it doesn’t give credit for the difficulty when descending and ascending into tombs etc!!!

Just back from the Son et Lumière which was ok, but a little disappointing…it started with the whole crowd slowly walking through the temple, stopping at intervals while they did the spiel…rather difficult walking on the uneven surfaces in the dark (ok for us, but we worried about the less able walkers)…we imagined it was a sitting audience experience…finally we did get to a seating part for the last 10-15 minutes, then had to make our way back…lovely to see the amazing structures again, and lit up.

Now sipping a little wine and off to bed.Les mer