Luxor is a great outdoor museum filled with awe-inspiring monuments of an ancient civilization. Testaments to a desire for immortality, built for eternity in sandstone and granite, the temples, tombs and palaces are now surrounded by luxury hotels. The temples are built on massive scale, specially the Karnac temple. This group of temples starts with the avenue of Rams. Here we lost ourselves among obelisks and columns covered with hieroglyphs, before continuing to the Luxor temple, constructed for the worship of God Amon Ra.
A day trip took us to Abydos, the mecca of Ancient Egypt and the main seat of Osiris worship "The God of Eternity". Struck by the lush green fields contrasting with the desert beyond, we saw pheasants working the land and farmers practicing flood irrigation along the countryside.
Since the attack in 1997 the police have tightened their protection on tourists throughout the country and especially around this area. There is no more threat of violence but the police continues to control the movements of the tourists. So we had our special escort between the towns and monuments around this area. A bit frustrating as we could not stop for pictures along the road.
Arriving in Dendara, an important religious site, we were rewarded by the wonderfully preserved Temple of Hathor with underground crypts and twist ling stairways.
Back in Cairo after a flight from Luxor we visited a Coptic Orthodox Church were apparitions of the Holy Mother Mary had been seen in 1968. Aivi also wanted to have one more look at the captivating pyramids at sunset.
We got the virus, "the passion of Egypt" and were captured. Through a fantastic journey back in time and history we had seen so many things of unspeakable greatness. The old stones had spoken to us about ancient wisdom and we had listened.
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