Today is a packed day, Karnak Temple in the morning, then a trip out to the Valley of the Kings for some more tombs, then Luxor Temple in the late afternoon.

These are in the modern town of Luxor, over the years it’s had many names. In the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom it was called Thebes, and was the capital of Upper Egypt. With the two major temples, the priests here had considerable power.

We had another early departure for a two-hour bus ride to Dendera Temple. The water is a bit low on the Nile this time of year, so the boat can’t sail closer and make it a 20-minute bus ride.

We went to the Valley of the Kings today. This is where many New Kingdom Pharaohs are buried. We saw four tombs, Ramses IV, Tutankhamen, Merenptah and Ramses III.

We left Kom Ombo at 4am and went to Edfu. This is one of the reasons I like traveling by ship, the ship can sail while you sleep and eat, allowing you to arrive rested and ready to go.

Edfu Temple is dedicated to the god Horus. This temple was used as a refuge by the locals when the Romans banned the old religion and non-Christian worship. Living in the temple, the fires covered the ceilings with soot, covering most paintings. Later it was abandoned and filled and covered with sand. Locals built their houses on top of the sand covering the temple.

Today started with a visit to Philae Island which has the Temple of Isis. This temple was mostly built during the last dynasty, the Ptolemies. The temple was flooded in 1902 when the British built the Aswan low dam to grow more Egyptian cotton. It was moved from underwater to a higher island in the late 60s along with other structures that would be flooded by the high dam. Much of the colorful paint deteriorated while it was underwater. Philae is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Today we got up early for a three-hour bus ride to Abu Simbel a temple complex built by Ramses II (Ramses the Great) at the southern border of Egypt during his reign. Abu Simbel is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We got up early for a 5:30am breakfast at the hotel before a slow drive to the airport (Cairo traffic is horrible) for a one-hour flight to Aswan in the south of Egypt. It took longer to drive to the airport than to fly to Aswan.

Saqqara is outside Cairo on the west side of the Nile. Here we visited the step pyramid of Djoser and the tomb of a high official in the sixth dynasty Kagemni. The pyramid complex and Memphis is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In the morning we visited two mosques in historic Cairo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Al-Rifa’i Mosque and the Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan.

The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities opened in 1902. It is packed full now as more discoveries have been added over the years. There is a new museum under construction by the pyramids in Giza, it will have much more room for displaying artifacts.