Temple of Karnak
This morning we had to have our luggage in the hall by 4:45am with a 5:00am breakfast. After breakfast we were ushered onto the bus and transported to airport for a one hour flight to Luxor. From the Luxor Airport we were taken directly to the Temple of Karnak a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Construction began on the Temple around 1970BC and continued into the Ptolemaic Kingdom (305–30 BC). Karnak is a complex of temples, chapels, pylons, obelisks and buildings over an area of almost 250 acres. It is second only to the Giza pyramid complex in visits. The site consists of four main part. Unfortunately, only the area referred to as the Precinct of Amun-Re is open to the public.

This is the plane we got up at 4:30am to catch. It was a full A320. And it says <b>Air Cairo</b> not <b>Air Cargo</b>! We saw a lot of these small cycles with heavy loads. We also saw a lot of donkey powered carts hauling sugar cane. The Avenue of Sphinxes connects Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple. A canal was constructed to link Karnak to the Nile and boats similar to these made the journey daily. This boat was dedicated to the goat god Banebdjedet. This is the view that greeted us as we approached the Temple of Karnak. The small light colored building in the foreground is contemporary. The entrance to Karnak Temple is one end of the Avenue of Sphinxes. It is lined with sphinxes with the head of the Goat God Banebdjedet. Standing in front of each sphinx is a small statue of the Pharaoh Ramses II with his arms crossed. Crossed arms indicated the Pharaoh in afterlife. I believe that these are statues of Ramses II but I do not know what they guard. One of the many columns, this one standing alone, One hundred and forty-four columns line this avenue. Just in recent years, many of the structures were cleaned. Here the cleaning revealed colors vivid enough to have been painted recently. (Click on the image and use the pan and zoom to look at the upper portion of the colums.) The two largest obelisks at Karnak are the one of Queen Hatshepsut and the one of Thutmose I. The largest is almost 100 feet tall and weighs 343 tons. Statues of Ramses ii and Queen Nefertari standing with their left feet forward indicating they are living. The live person (with the arms) is our Egyptologist Tarek. Here Tarek points out the Ankh or Key of Life in the wall fresco. Entrance to the Karnak Cachette, a significant archaeological find unearthed by Georges Legrain. It contained over 700 stone statues and 17,000 bronze artifacts dating from various periods of ancient Egypt. The enormous Sacred Lake within the Karnak Temple Complex was built by Thutmose III. The Sofitel Winter Palace Hotel was a British colonial-era hotel built in 1886. A really tall transmission line tower crossing the Nile. You know I had to include this.

The S. S. Sphinx
The good ship S. S. Sphinx was christened in 2020. With a length of 256 feet, a beam of 50 feet and a draft of only 5.25 feet, the Sphinx has a crew of 40 and a maximum capacity of only 84 passengers. In this compact volume it offers two gourmet dining venues, a swimming pool, massage room and 42 gorgeously appointed suites complete with French balconies. Its bespoke decor includes regionally sourced fine Egyptian cottons, marble and hand-carved blonde wood crafted by local artisans.

Cruising down the Nile to Dendera (looking our my cabin). Here we docked in Dendera for the night.

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To Day 2 - Cairo To Day 4 - Temples of Hathor & Luxor