Luxor

Kings added to this complex across two thousand years. In the great hall 134 columns stand and part of the roofing stone remains.

Set among the shops and houses, it shows straight from the street when lit at night. A mosque added later rests above the temple wall inside.

More than sixty tombs were cut here and only a handful open at a time. Paint on the walls stayed in darkness, so after three thousand years the colour holds.

Three terraces set against the cliff make the building read as part of it. The queen had herself carved as a king, so the figures wear a beard.

Two figures of 18 metres remain standing in the middle of farmland. The temple behind them is gone and only the pair is left.

It lifts before sunrise to show the west bank tombs and fields from above. Where it lands depends on the wind, so a vehicle follows underneath.

The men who cut the royal tombs lived here and the house floors survive in rows. The paintings in their own tombs match the royal ones for quality.

Battle scenes cut deep into the wall throw hard shadows. Few visitors come, so a long quiet look is possible.

The boat between the east and west banks costs very little. Bicycles and motorbikes come aboard and passengers stand among them.

Ram headed sphinxes line 2.7 kilometres between the two temples. It lay buried under the city and a long excavation opened it again.

A museum on the east-bank corniche that shows fewer pieces, each lit with care, so it suits a slow visit. Statues found together in 1989 beneath the Luxor Temple court fill their own wing. Past the lawn out front lies the Nile.

A small museum reached by stairs below the corniche, showing the tools and ointment jars of embalming. Besides a human mummy there are a crocodile, a cat and a ram. An hour covers the lot.

Ramesses II's mortuary temple on the west bank, its court strewn with the broken pieces of a colossal fallen king. Shelley's poem Ozymandias grew out of this statue. Hatshepsut's temple pulls many times the visitors.

Tombs of officials and priests dug into the Qurna hillside, with farming, banquets and funeral processions painted in bright colour. They show more daily life than the royal tombs. Tickets are sold for small groups of tombs, so pick a set at the office.

The valley of queens and princes, where the tomb of Nefertari, wife of Ramesses II, is counted as having the best-kept paint of all. Nefertari's tomb needs its own costly ticket, and time inside is kept short. It is quieter than the Valley of the Kings.

The domed mud-brick house where Howard Carter, who found Tutankhamun's tomb, stayed through the excavation. His desk, camera and darkroom are set out as they were. Its hillock overlooks the climb toward the royal tombs, so drop in when coming back down.

A temple of the goddess Hathor about 60km north of Luxor, with roof and ceilings almost intact. Cleaning away the soot revealed a deep blue sky goddess overhead. The zodiac relief in the roof chapel is a cast; the original is in the Louvre in Paris.

A corridor in the temple of Seti I carries a king list naming 76 earlier rulers in order. Its reliefs rank among the finest in Egypt. Several hours by road from Luxor, it pairs with Dendera as one day out.

A temple sunk in a pit well below today's street level, its pillared hall reached down a stairway. Cleaning off soot and bird droppings in recent years brought the ceiling's first colours back. Many people stop on the way south.

A Ptolemaic temple to the falcon god Horus, reckoned the most complete temple surviving in Egypt. A granite falcon stands before the pylon. Riding in by horse carriage from the cruise landing is the long-standing way to arrive.

The market lanes running north behind Luxor Temple, a line of spice, galabeya and souvenir shops. The roofed stretch stays shaded even at noon. Shopkeepers call out often; a smile and walking on is enough.