Luxor. Temple of Karnak and Temple of Luxor

We flew out of Cairo to Luxor the next day. 

We checked into the lovely Winter Palace (more on that later) and were met tout d'suite by our guide Tayeb. 

Our plan was to visit the temples of Karnak (yes, just like Johnny Carson) and Luxor (yes, just like Las Vegas) that afternoon.

Both temples are very close to the hotel, so we made very good time.

Here we are on the Road of Sphinxes leading to the Karnak Temple from Luxor. The road orignally extended about 2 miles between the two temples and was lined with ram-headed Sphinxes. Why ram headed instead of human headed, you ask? Well, according to our guide, before the Pharaoh was, um, well - shall we say "satisfied" my his queen, he acted like a ram. On the Luxor side of the temple, the sphinxes have human heads. You can believe that story or not.

It amazed me to see all these columns. I had not anticipated seeing these at all - I thought they were a later architectural element. That shows you what I know. Doreen, of course, was not surprised.

Here is a better shot of the Avenue of Sphinxes

This is the Great Hypostyle Hall, with 134 columns. It was stunning.

The columns were mostly reassembled, but they were amazing none the less.

This is also one of the temples from which Obelisks were "harvested" and sent to Europe.

and if you look closely here, you see a table of numbers. The Egyptians never had a "0", but even without that they could count. Just hard to do advanced math. Of course, this was about 2,300 years ago.

More sphinxes. Ram headed

But on the way to Luxor, you see the man-headed sphinxes.

Which takes us to the Temple of Luxor. It is a Ramses II temple. Now, obelisks (unlike sphinxes) were always erected in pairs. But if you want to see this one's partner, you will have to go to Paris and the Place de la Concorde.

Here is the partner:

 But those Ramses are big.

 Very big

It is always amazing to me to think about how these temples were reconstructed. You can see in this image the parts of the columns that are original (the inscribed sections) and the reconstructed parts (just plan cement. Concrete? I don't know. My brother Matt or niece Dominique would have to tell you)

In front of the row of columns at Luxor Temple

Interestingly, the early Christians also used these temples. Here is some evidence of that:

It was a long day, but we had a chance to grab a beer (a Stella this time. Local, Egyptian Stella.)

And yes, that is a uulating woman on that label.

 Which we drank while relaxing on our balcony overlooking the Nile