Jacqui and Richard Abroad: Monday, April 11th - Recap of Egypt - Part II: Luxor (Karnak and Luxor Temples, Valley of the Kings and Queen of Hatshepsut Temple)

The flight from Cairo to Luxor is about an hour long. We got greeted again at the airport and driven to our cruise ship, the Semiranis I, by a representative of the tour company. We checked in and got ready for our cruise on the Nile. The ship is an older ship, and much smaller than what we see on cruises on the ocean or Mediteranean. The ship has basically four different floors, with the restaurant on floor one, the reception on floor 2, a few vendors on floor 3, the bar (and our room very close to it - Walla (I swear to God), it just happened that way) on floor 4 and the pool and sundeck above us. The food was always good, even if the selection was more limited than on a big cruise ship. This ship could hold maybe 100 or so passengers, and it wasn't full.

On Sunday, we visited two temples; the one in Karmak and the one in Luxor. They are 3 km apart in a straight line and used to have a road that joined them. That road is bordered by sphynxes all along on both side of it. The statues at the temples are so impressive, as are the hyeroglyphics on every wall that you see.

We visited the Valley of the Kings on Monday. We visited three tombs. They were all different from each other, but it was really neat to see how each one is built into the mountain and then covered over by that same mountain, It is amazing that they were discovered at all! Our next stop was at Hatsheput Temple. It was quite impressive. Upon our return to the ship, we started sailing on the Nile to our next destination, Edfu (but that will be the next blog entry!).