Luxor a bustling, modern city were you don't have to look far to see the monuments of both ancient Egyptian and more recent civilizations. Luxor was known in ancient times as Thebes, which was the capital of ancient Egypt’s New Kingdom. The town and associated sites are often called the world’s greatest open-air museum as the number of monuments in the area is unparalleled anywhere else in the world! The city of Luxor boasts two temples - Luxor and Karnak. Luxor Temple on the east side of the Nile is well preserved, with some huge statues of Ramses II the builder of major additions to the temple. Here also is the partner obelisk to that now found in Paris. Breath taking Karnak is the largest religious monument in the world and was built for more than 1.300 years. Karnak and Luxor Temple were originally joined together by an avenue lined with ram-headed sphinxes.

Today the city has all the amenities tourists might expect, including a variety of hotels, bars, nightclubs, restaurants and an airport, where visitors often arrive to embark on a Nile cruiser to visit sites such as Esna, Edfu, Dendera and Abydos up and down the Nile valley. One thing you might notice is that also newer buildings in Luxor looks ‘ancient’, all designed to appear as pharaonic constructs. This as a result after the mania that resulted from Howard Carter's discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun in the nearby Valley of the Kings.