After spending a couple of days in Cairo, my wife and I arrived in Luxor. Before our trip, we planned to tour Luxor by ourself, but after our research, we thought it might be easier for us to join one of the local tours in Egypt. We picked the East and West Banks of Luxor tour offered by Travel2Egypt.org because its itinerary covers most of the places we wanted to go.
We were picked up by our guide at the hotel on time. He explained what we would be doing throughout the day and that the tour would last about 9 hours. Our first stop was the Luxor Temple, an ancient temple built in the 22nd and 23rd centuries BC. Yes, BC! Both my wife and I were in awe. Then our driver took us to the Temple of Karnak, which was pretty close to the Luxor Temple. It was huge and amazing. There were so much to take in. Our guide explained everything to us about the temple and gave us some free time to look around and take photos.
Our next stop was the Valley of the Kings – a royal burial site of the New Kingdom. It was very interesting and our guide was very knowledgeable, and he gave us plenty of time to look around to take in the sights. Admission to the tomb of King Tut wasn’t included in our tour, but we decided to pay the extra and go into the tomb of this famous pharaoh. Well, it was smaller than we expected. The Valley of the Kings was an amazing, but if we were going to come here again, we wouldn’t pay to get into the tomb. Next, we headed to the Valley of the Queens, where the tomb of Nefertiti is located. The tomb was closed to the public.
On our way to the Hatshepsut Temple, we stopped by the Colossi of Memnon. It was a neat quick stop and didn’t need a lot of time. There were some rather aggressive sellers in the parking lot so be prepared. Our last stop of the tour was the Hatshepsut Temple, and my wife said it was her favourite site of the whole vacation. She found the story of Hatshepsut very fascinating, and the temple very impressive. I agree. The temple was huge, and the views were so fantastic. While most temples we visited were covered in reliefs, the Hatshepsut Temple was covered with wall paintings. It was interesting.
At the end of the day, our driver dropped us off at our hotel in Luxor. Oh, I forgot to mention the lunch. It was very filling with lots of options. Overall, we really enjoyed this day tour with Travel2Egypt.org.
