You can cruise up and down the Nile in many ways. As a matter of fact it is quite an industry these days and I heard that over 600 vessels have a permit to operate on the river. Have I known better in advance, I would rather have embarked on a felucca for a couple of days even though I must admit that the luxury of the Mövenpick Nile Cruiser was quite enjoyable after all...

Working our way up the river, passing and visiting the temples of Edfu and Kom Obo my cruiser finally reached Luxor where I had decided to stay for a couple of days. I started with a visit to the valley of the Queens, which is less visited than the Kings and a better place to study the hieroglyphs and carvings in the ancient tombs. The graves of the valley of the Kings are of slightly larger proportions and despite the hordes of tourists it is quite exciting to enter the tomb of Ramses II and the other, since long gone, royalties of Egypt. I recommend you to skip Tutankhamen’s grave. It is very small and really nothing to see. The exhibition in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo on the other hand, is the place to go in this case.

The temple of Luxor and Karnak is an absolute must. If Luxor is impressing, Karnak is enormous and top of the pops when it comes to Egyptian temples and I read somewhere that over 80.000 people where working on the temple site in it’s heydays.

If you don’t want to do the full-fledged tour of Egypt, Luxor is the place to stay for a couple of days and indulge yourself in the ancient life of the pharaohs. I promise you it will be much rewarding.