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Luxor

Holger Uwe Schmitt · File:"Millionenjahrhaus" - Totentempel der Hatshepsut. 03.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22Millionenjahrhaus%22_-_Totentempel_der_Hatshepsut._03.jpg

Region · Egypt

Luxor

More of the ancient world stands here than anywhere else on earth, and it is split across two banks that behave like two different countries.

Best seasonOct – Apr
Ideal length2 – 3 nights, or a cruise
Main gatewayLuxor International (LXR)
Getting aboutDriver, ferry and the corniche on foot
EntryVisa required for Indian passport holders
SuitsAntiquity · Nile cruises · slow first-timers
Overview

Why Luxor

Luxor is what is left of Thebes, the capital of Egypt through most of the New Kingdom, and the reason it needs a page rather than a line on an itinerary is that it is not one place. The east bank was the city of the living and holds two enormous temple complexes still standing in the middle of a working town. The west bank was the city of the dead and holds the royal tombs, the mortuary temples and the villages of the men who cut them. They are twenty minutes apart and they are planned completely differently: the east bank is an afternoon and an evening, the west bank is a first-light start. Almost every disappointing day in Luxor comes from treating the two as one.

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Cities & Places

Where to go in Luxor

Luxor town is the base for this governorate and, in practice, effectively the whole of it. Everything on the west bank is reached from it and returned to on the same day.

Luxor
Luxor
Highlights

What Luxor holds

Six things carry almost every Luxor itinerary. Four are on the west bank, which is why the mornings here start early.

KarnakThe Precinct of Amun-Re, added to by pharaoh after pharaoh across roughly two thousand years. Its hypostyle hall holds a hundred and thirty-four columns, the tallest of them about twenty-one metres, and they were originally painted. Nothing else in Egypt gives the same sense of accumulated time.
Luxor TempleIn the middle of the town rather than outside it, and better after dark when it is lit and the coach parties have gone. A medieval mosque sits on top of one corner of it and is still in use — the clearest single illustration in Egypt of a site never actually abandoned.
The Valley of the KingsMore than sixty tombs cut down into the rock of a dry desert valley rather than built above ground, precisely so they could not be found. Three are open on the standard ticket and the selection rotates to spread the wear; Seti I and Tutankhamun are ticketed separately.
Deir el-BahariHatshepsut’s mortuary temple, rising in three colonnaded terraces straight out of a cliff amphitheatre. It is the most modern-looking building in Egypt and it is three and a half thousand years old.
The rest of the west bankMedinet Habu, with the best-preserved painted reliefs in Thebes; the Ramesseum and its toppled colossus; Deir el-Medina, the village of the tomb-cutters, with their own decorated tombs above it; and the Colossi of Memnon standing alone in a field.
Balloons at first lightThe west bank is flown over at dawn from a launch field near the cultivation. It is the one activity here that has to be booked around the wind rather than the calendar, and it is cancelled without notice when the wind is wrong.
When to go

When to visit Luxor

A desert climate with almost no rain and a summer that is not a matter of preference. Upper Egypt runs several degrees hotter than Cairo, and Luxor is the place where that shows.

Oct – NovThe best window with March. Warm days, cool mornings, and open-air sites that can be walked through the middle of the day rather than only at the ends of it.
Dec – FebPeak season, genuinely cool, cold before dawn, and the clearest air of the year. The sites are busiest and the cruise boats fullest, so this is the window to book earliest for.
Mar – AprThe other good window. Warm and bright, and also khamsin season, when a hot southerly can blow sand across Upper Egypt for a day or two and flatten visibility and balloon flights alike.
May – SepHot, and from June severely so — Luxor regularly runs above forty degrees. Trips in these months are built around first light and late afternoon with the middle of the day indoors, and the west bank is done before nine or not at all.
Getting around

How to travel Luxor

One airport, one river, and a short list of ways to cross it. Distances are small; the heat, not the map, decides how much fits into a day.

Arriving

  • Luxor International (LXR) sits a few kilometres east of the town and takes domestic flights from Cairo in about an hour, plus seasonal international services. Nearly every Indian itinerary reaches Luxor by connecting through Cairo.
  • Indian passport holders need a visa for Egypt. There is an electronic route and a consular one, and eligibility, documents and processing times change, so it is arranged as part of the booking rather than left to the airport. Final decisions rest with the relevant authorities.
  • The sleeper train from Cairo runs overnight and is a genuine alternative to the flight for travellers who would rather not lose a morning. It is booked well ahead and it is not faster — it is a night you do not spend in a hotel.

Crossing the river

  • The public ferry from the corniche to the west-bank landing takes a few minutes and costs almost nothing. It is how the town crosses and it is perfectly usable, though it lands you where you still need transport.
  • A car with a driver for the west-bank day is the normal arrangement, because the sites are spread across several kilometres of desert with no shade between them and the bridge crossing is some way south of the town.
  • Caleches — horse-drawn carriages — work the corniche. Anyone taking one should look at the animal first; the condition of the horses varies a great deal and it is a reasonable thing to be particular about.

Around the sites

  • Karnak is about three kilometres north of Luxor Temple and the two are joined by the re-excavated avenue of sphinxes, which can be walked in the cool of the evening.
  • The west-bank ticket office sells the Valley of the Kings ticket and the separately ticketed tombs; some tickets are not sold at the tomb itself, so the order of the morning matters and a guide handles it.
  • Everything on the west bank is exposed. There is no shade in the Valley of the Kings, the tombs themselves are hot rather than cool, and water, a hat and an early start do more for the day than any amount of planning.
Suggested itinerary

How Luxor fits together

Day 1

The east bank

Arrive, and give the afternoon to Karnak, which is large enough to absorb it. Luxor Temple after dark, lit, on the way back into town. Nothing on this day requires an early start and the day you fly in should not have one.

Day 2

The west bank

Across at first light for the Valley of the Kings while the rock is still cool, then Deir el-Bahari, then one of Medinet Habu, the Ramesseum or Deir el-Medina depending on appetite. Back over the river by early afternoon; the west bank in the middle of the day is punishing and not worth proving anything about.

Day 3

The second west-bank day, or the balloon

The tombs of the nobles and Deir el-Medina, which are smaller, quieter and often better painted than the royal tombs, or a balloon at dawn followed by a slow morning. Esna and its sunken temple of Khnum are an hour south if the appetite is still there.

Onward

South by river

Most itineraries board a cruise boat here and sail south to Aswan over three or four nights, stopping at Edfu and Kom Ombo on the way. The alternative is to fly on and keep the nights on land.

Continue Planning

Related to Luxor

The places in Luxor that have a guide of their own, and where to stay and eat once you are there.

AttractionKarnakAttractionLuxor TempleAttractionThe Valley of the KingsAttractionDeir el-BahariHotelWhere to StayRestaurantWhere to Eat
FAQ

Common questions

Two is the working minimum and gives one east-bank afternoon and one west-bank morning. Three is the comfortable answer and adds a second west-bank day for the tombs of the nobles and Deir el-Medina, which are smaller and often better painted than the royal tombs, or a dawn balloon. Beyond three the returns fall off and the time is better spent on the river going south, which is why so many itineraries use Luxor as the place they board rather than the place they stay.
No, and an itinerary that offers it is selling you an airport rather than a destination. Luxor is in Upper Egypt, hundreds of kilometres south of Cairo, and reaching it costs a flight each way. Karnak alone absorbs an afternoon and the west bank has to be done at first light. The normal shape is to fly down, spend two or three nights, and either fly back or join a Nile cruise to Aswan.
The east bank for a first visit. It has the town, the corniche, the restaurants, the railway station and Luxor Temple within walking distance, and the west-bank sites are a short crossing away in the morning. The west bank is quieter, greener and closer to the tombs, and travellers who have been to Luxor before often prefer it — but it puts a river between you and dinner, and the ferry is not running at every hour you might want it.
It is the reason most itineraries come to Luxor at all. The classic run is Luxor to Aswan over three or four nights, with Edfu and Kom Ombo visited from the boat and nothing to pack or unpack between them. The alternative — flying between the two and staying in hotels — is faster and gives better rooms, but it removes the part of the trip that is actually the river. What it should not be is both: a one-night cruise is a transfer with a cabin.
Luxor is one of the hottest inhabited places in Egypt and summer daytime temperatures above forty degrees are ordinary, with very low humidity and no rain to break it. That is survivable and Indian travellers are less startled by it than most, but it changes the shape of the day rather than just the comfort of it: everything outdoors happens before about nine and after about four, and the middle belongs to the museum, the hotel or a long lunch. From October to April none of this applies.
Yes, though nobody comes for it. The east-bank souq behind the corniche is a working market rather than a tourist one and is best in the evening. The west-bank cultivation — sugar cane, banana, donkeys, irrigation channels — is a completely different landscape from the desert a kilometre away and is worth a slow drive or a bicycle. And the Luxor Museum, which is small, well lit and beautifully arranged, is the antidote to anyone who has had enough of standing in the sun.
Plan

Plan your Egypt journey

Tell us how many nights you have and whether the Nile is part of the trip, and we will build Luxor around the light rather than against it — west bank at dawn, east bank after dark.

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