None of the previous reviewers has described the visit to Esna, which is part of this proposal, so in my post I will focus only on it. In short – don’t miss this one!

Esna is the first stop on the route of the temples of Upper Egypt from Luxor to Aswan. From Luxor leads to it a rather weak road, which takes about an hour. Esna and Edfu are connected by the same road, and the distance can be covered in an hour and a half. You should park on the main road, the last 300 meters walk around the souvenir stands.

The purpose of our visit in Esna was to visit a small but very well-preserved temple of the god Khnum. Its construction began in the fifteenth century BC, but was completed only in Roman times. The temple in Esna is undergoing intensive renovation and you can see the difference between renovated and non-renovated parts, especially on the vault. It is also surprising that architecturally it is similar to temples twenty centuries older. The Greek dynasty of the Ptolemaic, and later the Romans, managed to leave only a small mark on the architecture of this place.

I highly recommended this temple, after Dendera and Abydos, Esna has the best preserved wall and ceiling paintings of the entire Egyptian T-List. It is probably even better renovated than the aforementioned two.