Luxor Temple

After surviving the walk from Mara's to the Luxor Temple on foot, & in tact, we felt great sense of satisfaction! It had involved following a line drawing map with no street names...because most streets don't have street names visible on them, avoiding piles of donkey dung, alfalfa feed, kids on motorbikes, men sitting outside their shops smoking shisha, men trying to keep the dust down outside their shops by swooshing buckets of water, cars, vans, trucks & the consistent cry of caleche drivers, trying to offer us a ride as they whipped their horses! Thats not to mention the numbers, drawn to us like a magnet...who soooooooooo wanted to sell us something! As has been our experience thus far in Egypt, Luxor Temple was EMPTY, and consequently a haven! This is a fabulous site, not just for its pharaohonic remains, but because we have evidence of the different reincarnations this location has experienced over time. Amenhotep began the temple, dedicating it to the locally worshipped triad of gods; Amun,Mut & Khonsu. It was our old friend Rameses 2 that completed it. However, it was later used by Alexander the Great, then a Roman camp made it their base & in more recent times, a whole VILLAGE resided on the site. They were clearly well established as they even built a Mosque! On relocating the village & excavating the site, they left the Mosque in situ, not only because it is beautiful & still in use today, but because it is built at the height that the sand had covered the ruins to. I am sorry I haven't included a photo showing that. What I have included are glimpses of the first pylon (gateway) buit by Ramese 2, the avenue of sphinxes that continued on for the 2 km to Karnak temple. It was along this avenue that the gods were taken out from Luxor to visit Karnak for the Opet Festival.