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LUXOR
Town of the palaces
Looking at Luxor centre from the West Bank. Dominating the skyline is, as always, the Luxor Temple.
Even more impressive than the Luxor Temple, is the temple complex at Karnak. Famous for much, but the obelisks are in particular fascinating from their high rise and complete lack of any practical purpose.
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When you travel up the Nile, Luxor is your most likely goal. As well as everybody else's. If there were no tourists, perhaps there wouldn't be a Luxor anymore. Everyone here works with guiding, handicrafts, hotels, restaurants or whatever. And if you thought you had experienced hustling before, wait until you get to Luxor.
But you simply have to go here. Next to Cairo, this is the city holding the most impressive Pharaonic monuments. And they're bountiful too. Valley of the Kings, the Theban Necropolis and Karnak, are all a few kilometres away from the city of Luxor. Therefore the name, the palaces, 'al-Uqsuur. The reason for all this is Luxor having been Thebes, the capital of the New Kingdom, and estimates on population run as high as 1 million.
Thebes was the city suffering for Akhenaten's attempts to force a monotheistic religion on the people of the Nile, when Thebes, the centre of Amon worship, seized being the capital. But Akhenaten never succeeded, and at his death power returned to Thebes.
Thebes held its force up for some 1,500 years, but it all ended around 650 BCE. The city gradually waned, and its importance was lost forever when the Muslims came to power in Egypt. Not before Napoleons landing in Egypt in 1798, did it get back its vitality, but this time as a tourist trap. A position it has kept ever since.
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