On the first day here we visited the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir al-Bahri, a temple blended into the limestone cliffs and terraced up the steep slopes. Although Hatshepsut was one of the most famous and uniquely female pharaohs, it would appear that she was not well loved in her time and her pictures and cartouche have been chiselled off the temple. Only restored statues remain.

We rode donkeys (mine was called Ali Baba) to the Theban Necropolis that is the Valley of the Kings. Here tombs were hidden in the hillsides to protect them from robbers, the most famously discovered being that of King Tut. We visited three of the tombs that are open (there are 63 tombs at the moment and the latest discovery was the tomb of Ramses II's sons - as you can imagine, its a pretty humungous tomb, but its not open to the public, neither is that of the big man Ramses II himself). We visited Merenptah (Ramses II's son & successor), Tuthmosis III and Ramses I.

The adventure continued the following day with a Horse & Carriage ride to the Temple of Karnak or more precisely the Karnak temples as it is a huge complex of temples, obelisks, sanctuaries and a hall of 134 massive hyperstyle columns (seen on films such as James Bond). This was started and built upon by many Pharaohs including Seti I, Ramses II, Hapshetsut and Tuthmosis III. Some of the areas have been damaged by an earthquake and post-Pharaonic reign damage. We spent quite a bit of time here exploring before visiting a papyrus museum to see how the papyrus paintings are made.

Intro | Museum & Pyramids | Aswan | Felucca | Luxor West Bank & Temples | Dahab | Mt Sinai & St Catherine