ALL M&I

This temple complex surprised me, I had never realized that Valley of the Kings is just a valley with tunnels leading to underground tombs everywhere – Wikipedia suggests there are 65 tombs, and we visited just 3 of them!

Visiting a tomb (after a golf cart ride from the entrance to the beginning of the tombs area) involves standing in a hot-sun queue with hundreds of others, for a chance to squeeze down a not-too-small but sometimes steep tunnel into the rock, with an infinity of carvings on the tunnel walls and eventually down at the tomb area. It’s an amazing place but of course very crowded (and I definitely didn’t fancy visiting loads more tombs – which is possible for extra cost) …

On our way to the Mortuary temple of Hatshepsut, we passed and quickly viewed the Colossi of Memnon, a couple of damaged giant statues more than 3000 years old, that were once part of a temple.

From there it’s a short trip to the impressive / unusual Hatshepsut Temple which is somewhat carved into the hill surrounding it; the sun/wind protected interior has a lot of color still on the walls and ceilings!

The third temple of the day, and it’s sunset by the time we get there! The Luxor Temple complex is huge with once again columns everywhere; there is also an obelisk that used to have a twin (which is now in Paris!)

The row of Sphinx statues in the last photo was once a lined-either-side walkway that ran the approx 2 miles between the Karnak and Luxor Temples. Recently the government has taken back the land and made it a walkway, but of course it’s missing most of the Sphinxes because they were cleared to allow people to live there.