Things to do in Nile Valley
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Salahadeen
Salahadeen offers a set menu of Egyptian dishes, served as if it were an Egyptian home – knives and forks are offered but guests are encouraged to eat in the Egyptian way by dipping bread in the various dishes. There are two choices, the ‘platter’ (E£85), which includes three courses with14 dishes of fresh home-cooked food to share, or the ‘Feast’ (E£125) with five courses including 25 different dishes. Most dishes consist of vegetables, and the vegetarian options are not cooked in a meat broth as in so many other places. The bar opens for pre-dinner drinks at 6pm, and alcohol is available in the restaurant, too.
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Animalia
This small but charming museum has a collection of stuffed animals found in Nubia, samples of sedimentary rocks, great pictures of Nubia before it was flooded by Lake Nasser, a small shop selling Nubian crafts at fixed prices and a lovely roof terrace where drinks are served overlooking the gardens.
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Karnak
More than a temple, Karnak is an extraordinary complex of sanctuaries, kiosks, pylons and obelisks dedicated to the Theban gods and the greater glory of pharaohs. Everything is on a gigantic scale: the site covers over 2 sq km, large enough to contain about 10 cathedrals, while its main structure, the Temple of Amun, is the largest religious building ever built. This was where the god lived on earth, surrounded by the houses of his wife Mut, and their son Khonsu, two other huge temple complexes on this site. Built, added to, dismantled, restored, enlarged and decorated over nearly 1500 years, Karnak was the most important place of worship in Egypt during the New Kingdom. …
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Sofra
Sofra remains our favourite restaurant in Luxor. Located in a 1930s house, away from all the tourist tat, it is as Egyptian as can be, in menu and decor, and even in price. The ground floor has three private dining rooms and a salon, giving the feeling of being in someone’s home. There is also a wonderful rooftop terrace, which is also a cafe, where you can come for a drink. The house is filled with antique oriental furniture, chandeliers and traditional decorations, all simple but cosy and very tasteful. The menu is large, featuring all the traditional Egyptian dishes, such as stuffed pigeon and excellent duck, as well as a large selection of salads, dips (E£4) and mezze…
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Chef Khalil
Popular fish restaurant, just along from the train station, serving very fresh fish from Lake Nasser and the Red Sea, charged by weight, grilled, baked or fried to your choice and served with salad and rice or French fries. It’s a small place, but worth the wait if it’s full.
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Panorama
With its pleasant Nileside terrace, this is a great place to chill and sip a herbal tea or fresh juice. It also serves simple Egyptian stews cooked in clay pots, with salad, mezze and rice or chips, or an all-day breakfast.
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Oasis Café
Set in a renovated 1930s building right in the centre of town, the Oasis is a good place to recover from the bustle of Luxor town, from the heat or from sightseeing. The dining rooms are cool with fans, high ceilings and old tiled floors, painted in soft colours with local artwork on the walls, and furnished with traditional-style furniture. With jazz softly playing, smoking and nonsmoking rooms, the New Yorker to read and friendly staff, this is the perfect place for lunch, to linger over a good morning latte or to spend the afternoon reading. The place is very Western, but in a nice way like your favourite cafe back home. The food is good too, with an extensive brunch m…
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Valley of the Kings
Once called the Great Necropolis of Millions of Years of Pharaoh, or the Place of Truth, the Valley of the Kings has 63 magnificent royal tombs from the New Kingdom period (1550–1069 BC), all very different from each other. The West Bank had been the site of royal burials from the First Intermediate Period (2160–2025 BC) onwards. At least three 11th-dynasty rulers built their tombs near the modern village of Taref, northeast of the Valley of the Kings. The 18th-dynasty pharaohs, however, chose the isolated valley dominated by the pyramid-shaped mountain peak of Al-Qurn (The Horn). The secluded site enclosed by steep cliffs was easy to guard and, when seen from the Theban …
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Ace
ACE was opened in 2000 by a British-run charity to give free treatment for the working animals of Egyptians, particularly donkeys and horses, and it is today a great veterinary hospital and animal welfare centre seeing up to 200 animals a day. For those distressed by the state of the horses in Luxor streets, you may like to see what is done here. The centre also runs an education program receiving 80 local children a day, aiming to impart a love and care for animals. This is a great place to visit, and foreign children can spend the day at the centre to help care for the animals. Volunteers and donations are very welcome.
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Nobi’s Arabian Horse Stables
Excellent horses can be found at Nobi’s Arabian Horse Stables, which also provides riding hats, English saddles and insurance. Nobi also has 25 camels and as many donkeys at the same price, and organises longer horse riding and camping trips into the desert or a week from Luxor to Kom Ombo along the West Bank. Call ahead to book, and he can arrange a hassle-free transfer to make sure you arrive at the right place, as often taxi drivers will try and take you to a friend’s stable instead.
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Habiba
Run by an Australian woman who loves to travel in Egypt and who wants to promote the best of Egyptian crafts, this tiny shop goes from strength to strength. It sells an ever-expanding selection of Bedouin embroidery, jewellery, leather work, wonderful Siwan scarves, cotton embroidered scarves from Sohag, the best Egyptian cotton towels (usually only for export), mirrors and brass lights – and all at fair-trade fixed prices. A world away from what is available in the nearby souq.
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Temple of Hatshepsut
The eyes first focus on the dramatic rugged limestone cliffs that rise nearly 300m above the desert plain, a monument made by nature, only to realize that at the foot of all this immense beauty lies a man-made monument even more extraordinary, the dazzling Temple of Hatshepsut. The almost modern-looking temple blends in beautifully with the cliffs from which it is partly cut, a marriage made in heaven.
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Jamboree Restaurant
A small British-run restaurant, Jamboree serves international fare in its small, rather undistinct dining room or much better, upstairs on a pleasant roof terrace. Lunchtime dishes are limited to good homemade sandwiches and snacks. The menu includes filled jacket potatoes, pastas and the traditional, perhaps not so authentic, Egyptian dishes.
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Salah Ad-Din
This is the best of the Nileside restaurants, with several terraces and a freezing air-conditioned dining room. The menu has Egyptian, Nubian and international dishes, a notch better than most restaurants in Aswan. The service is efficient and the beers are cool (E£12). There is also a terrace to smoke a sheesha.
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Snobs
Popular and well-managed Western-style restaurant that has gained an excellent reputation for its great salads, pastas, pizzas and steaks, cooked by a young and talented chef. There is no alcohol but you are welcome to bring your own discreetly.
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Luxor Museum
This wonderful museum has a beautifully displayed collection, from the end of the Old Kingdom right through to the Mamluk period, mostly gathered from the Theban temples and necropolis.
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Al-Masry Restaurant
Popular with meat-eating local families, Al-Masry is famous for its excellent fresh kebabs and kofta, as well as pigeon and chicken, all served with bread, salad and tahini.
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Grand Restaurant & Café
A favourite with tour groups, the Grand has a pleasant terrace for mezze and sheesha. It's located just off Sharia Khalid ibn al-Walid.
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Pharaoh’s Stables
Pharaoh’s Stables has horses, donkeys and camels (all E£30 to E£35 per hour).
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Amun Temple Enclosure - Main Axis
The most important place of worship at Karnak was the massive Amun Temple Enclosure (Precinct of Amun), dominated by the great Temple of Amun-Ra, which contains the famous hypostyle hall, a spectacular forest of giant papyrus-shaped columns. On its southern side is the Mut Temple Enclosure, once linked to the main temple by an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes. To the north is the Montu Temple Enclosure, which honoured the local Theban war god.
The 3km-long paved avenue of human-headed sphinxes that once linked the great Temple of Amun at Karnak with Luxor Temple, is now again being cleared.
The Quay of Amun was the dock where the large boats carrying the statues of the gods m…
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Abu Ruins
A path through the garden behind the Aswan Museum leads to the evocative ruins of ancient Abu. Swiss and German teams, excavating here since the early 20th century, have made the site into an outdoor museum. Numbered plaques and reconstructed buildings mark the island's long history from around 3000 BC to the 14th century AD.
The largest structure in the site is the partially reconstructed Temple of Khnum (plaque Nos 6, 12 and 13). Built in honour of the God of Inundation during the Old Kingdom, it was added to and used for over 1500 years before being extensively rebuilt in Ptolemaic times. Other highlights include a small 4th-dynasty step pyramid, thought to have been b…
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Colossi of Memnon
The two faceless Colossi of Memnon that rise majestically about 18m from the plain are the first monuments tourists see when they visit the West Bank. The enthroned figures have kept a lonely vigil on the changing landscape, and few visitors have any idea that these giants were only a tiny element of the largest temple ever built in Egypt, Amenhotep III's memorial temple, believed to have covered an area larger than Karnak.
The pharaoh's memorial temple has now all but disappeared. It was built largely of mud brick on the flood plain of the Nile, where it was flooded every year. The walls simply dissolved after it was abandoned and no longer maintained, and later pharaohs…
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Temple of Seti I
The first structure you'll see at Abydos is the striking Cenotaph or Great Temple of Seti I, which, after a certain amount of restoration work, is one of the most complete temples in Egypt. This great limestone structure, unusually L-shaped rather than rectangular, was dedicated to the six major gods - Osiris, Isis and Horus, Amun-Ra, Ra-Horakhty and Ptah - and also to Seti I (1294-1279 BC) himself.
In the aftermath of the Amarna Period, it is a clear statement of a return to the old ways. As you roam through Seti's dark halls and sanctuaries an air of mystery surrounds you.
The temple is entered through a largely destroyed pylon and two courtyards, built by Seti I's son R…
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Amun Temple Enclosure - Southern Axis
The secondary axis of the Amun Temple Enclosure, running south from the third and fourth pylons, is a walled processional way from the seventh to the tenth pylon, leading to the Mut Temple Enclosure. The courtyard between the Hypostyle Hall and the seventh pylon, built by Tuthmosis III, is known as the cachette court, as thousands of stone and bronze statues were discovered here in 1903.
The priests had the old statues and temple furniture they no longer needed buried around 300 BC. Most statues were sent to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but some remained, standing in front of the seventh pylon, including four of Tuthmosis III on the left.
The well-preserved eighth pylon, …
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Aswan High Dam
Egypt's modern example of construction on a monumental scale, the controversial Aswan High Dam contains 18 times the amount of material used in the Great Pyramid of Khufu and created Lake Nasser, the world's largest artificial lake.
From the 1940s, it was clear that the old Aswan Dam, which only regulated the flow of water, was not big enough to counter the unpredictable annual flooding of the Nile. In 1952, when Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power, plans were drawn up for a new dam, 6km south of the old one, but from the start there were political and engineering difficulties. In 1956, after the World Bank refused the promised loan for the project, Nasser ordered the nation…
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