Luxor

Stretching along both banks of the Nile River 670 kilometres (416 miles) south of Cairo in Upper Egypt, Luxor (Arabic: Al-Uqsur, meaning "The Palaces") stands on the site of ancient Thebes, known to the Egyptians as Waset and celebrated by the Greek poet Homer in the Iliad as "hundred-gated Thebes". For more than five centuries during the New Kingdom (Eighteenth to Twentieth Dynasties, roughly 1550 to 1077 BCE), Waset served as the religious and ceremonial capital of the Egyptian Empire. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 (Reference 87: Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis) across 7,390 hectares, the city follows a sacred solar geography split cleanly by the Nile.

On the East Bank, where the sun rises each morning over the Eastern Desert, the pharaohs built monumental stone houses for the living gods. Here the 100-hectare Karnak Temple Complex and its 134-column Great Hypostyle Hall link southward via the restored 2.7-kilometre Avenue of Sphinxes (Tariq al-Kebash) to Luxor Temple and the living Abu el-Haggag Mosque, flanked by the Luxor Museum and the Mummification Museum on the Nile Corniche. Directly across the river on the West Bank, where the sun sinks behind the 420-metre pyramidal limestone peak of al-Qurn ("The Horn"), lies the realm of the dead and eternal rebirth. Beyond the twin 18-metre Colossi of Memnon, the Ramesseum, Medinet Habu, and the artisans' village of Deir el-Medina, desert wadis conceal the 65 rock-cut royal sepulchres of the Valley of the Kings (including KV62 Tutankhamun and KV17 Seti I) beside the three-tiered Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari and the Valley of the Queens.

Fly into Luxor International Airport (LXR) just 7 kilometres east of the Nile Corniche (15 minutes by pre-booked taxi, around 350 to 500 EGP as of November 2026) on direct domestic flights from Cairo (1 hour) or seasonal European charters, arrive at Luxor Railway Station on the overnight Abela sleeping train or seated ENR express from Cairo (9.5 to 10.5 hours) or Aswan (3 hours), or cross between the East and West Banks via the 5-minute municipal Nile ferry or the Al-Baghdadi Bridge 9 kilometres south.

Choose between the East Bank Corniche and Palace District for historic colonial-era riverfront resorts (such as the 1886 Sofitel Winter Palace), walkable access to Luxor Temple and the railway station, the quiet resort islands and gardens of Khaled Ibn El-Walid Street and Crocodile Island to the south, or the peaceful agricultural lanes of Al-Gezira and Ramla on the West Bank for rooftop views of the Theban Hills and instant morning access to the tombs.

Walk through the 134 sandstone columns of the Karnak Great Hypostyle Hall and Sacred Lake, stroll the 2.7-kilometre Avenue of Sphinxes into illuminated Luxor Temple, descend into three base-ticket tombs plus KV62 Tutankhamun and KV9 Ramesses V/VI in the Valley of the Kings, admire the Punt expedition reliefs at Hatshepsut's Temple at Deir el-Bahari, tour the painted courtyards of Medinet Habu, the Ramesseum, and Deir el-Medina, and take a day trip north to the astronomical ceiling of Dendera and the Osiris sanctuary of Abydos.

Dine on Upper Egyptian (Sa'idi) classics in our Luxor food guide: slow-simmered clay-pot tameya and ful medames with sun-risen aish shamsi sourdough bread, spiced pigeon or duck stuffed with freekeh green wheat, layered koshary, roasted Nile perch, and ruby-red karkadeh hibiscus tea grown in the Upper Nile valley.

Every sacred axis in Luxor was engineered around the annual Opet Festival and the Beautiful Feast of the Valley, when priests carried the gilded barques of the Theban Triad, Amun-Ra, Mut, and Khonsu, along the Avenue of Sphinxes and across the Nile. Today, that layered continuity lives on in the thirteenth-century Mawlid of Sheikh Yusuf Abu el-Haggag, whose annual boat procession circles the ancient walls of Luxor Temple.