The Nile for a While!

I love the breakfast buffet at the Four Seasons - we had pancakes, eggs, lamb biscuits, various pastries, etc. I'm already nervous to get back in my workout routine - I know I've gained 10 pounds on this trip already (and Tim said he loses weight on vacation - ha!).

We took a short flight from Cairo to Luxor for our cruise up the Nile on the Movenpeck Royal Lily Motor Ship. The first thing we noticed about Luxor was the lush greenery. There were palm trees and exotic flowers and grass...then there was a definite line that turned back into sand. It was crazy!

Once reaching our boat, we took a quick self-guided tour. Our room was small, as to be expected for a cruise ship, yet roomy enough. The view was nice too (It was a 5-story boat and we were the 4th floor). We had a fabulous lunch buffet before heading to our first tour with Amr. Most of the tours we have had have been private tours, but we were with a group of about 15 for our Nile tours. It was kind of nice to interact and meet with others. We met a nice family from Boston, a fun couple from Austin, a family from Australia, and another group from Gainesville, Florida. We all got along really well.

Our first stop this afternoon (109 degrees - yikes), was Karnak Temple in Luxor. It was a very impressive temple with ridiculously huge columns. This temple is the largest in the world. Rameses II claimed everything for himself in this temple, meaning, he scratched off former pharoahs' names and wrote his name on everything (somewhat self-righteous, don't you think?).

Tim with Rameses II (or a statue with his name on it)

These columns are huge!

Our next stop was the Luxor Temple with a couple of large obelisks. The purpose of these obelisks were to be used for landmarks, lighthouses, and sun dials. The top was once covered with a gold or silver coating and highly decorated with hyroglyphics. These obelisks were carved from a single piece of granite and usually took 7 months to carve it out of the rock and put it up for display. Luxor Temple was smaller than the Karnak Temple, but equally impressive.

obelisks

Luxor Temple

We headed back to the boat for dinner and afterwards, Tim and I went on our own to the Luxor Museum. I have to say that it was done incredibly well. We saw a bunch of statues, mummies, some more antiquities (specifically King Tutankhanan's), and even some papyrus.

We headed back to the ship and went straight to bed - we were exhausted. The boat is anchored in Luxor for the night and we will do a couple of other sites tomorrow with Amr and our group before leaving for our next stop.