"FROM KARNAK TO LUXOR - The Avenue of the Sphinxes, or Sacred Way, once connected the two miles from Karnak to Luxor Temple"
"FAÇADE - The temple, located on the east bank of the River Nile, was founded in 1400 B.C. Known as "the southern sanctuary", the temple was dedicated to the Theban Triad of Amun, Mut. The missing obelisk on the right hand side of the entrance can now be seen at Place de La Concorde, Paris"
"ENTRANCE COLONADE - With the giant statues of Ramesses II"
"THE FIRST PATIO - Ramesses II, Ramesses II and some few others... The Pharaoh wears the double crown of High and Low Egypt"
"HYPOSTYLE ROOM AND COLONNADE"
"AMENHOTEP III COURT"
"TEMPLE, CHAPEL, MOSQUE"
"RELIEFS - Including the ithyphallic Amun"
"FIRST PYLON AND OBELISK as seen from the ship"
"VIEWS OVER THE TEMPLE"
"TEMPLE AT NIGHT"
"AT NIGHT, FROM THE RIVER SIDE"
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50 comments:
Hi Folks! From the Karnak Temple to Luxor there was the Fabulous Avenue of the Sphinxes!! Some are already unearthed; others are still under the buildings that are being torn down to show the former glory of the city! The Temple in Luxor is also a fabulous site, but its most famous asset and one of the more magnificent of the remains is now very far away from there, actually at the Place de la Concorde in Paris!! ;)
Enjoy, drop a line and have a great weekend!!
Oh, familiar scenes! My hotel was just beside the temple, I could look at the night visions all night long.
Have a nice weekend, Gil!
W O W ~
You take us to the most amazing places. My mother and I both were awestruck by your photographs of this temple! Thank you much~
xox
Constance
Fantastic captures as always and the Temple at Luxor is gorgeous! Would love to go there! Thanks for sharing the beauty! Have a great weekend!
Sylvia
Amazing monuments and your photographs as well. Have a nice Sunday.
Luxor is just magnificent! Oh wow! I love this set.
I like the statues a lot, impressive!
Such amazing structures from a time so long ago. It is great to see the tourists in the shots to give perspective to the buildings. Thanks for the tour.
fascinating luxor! thank you for sharing
Surprising how the end of the movie on the journey of Ramsesses II corresponds with the publication of your post [http://parispointgriset.blogspot.com/2010/11/great-journey-of-ramesses-ii-is.html#links].
And among those who comment here, some probably visited the site with Christian Leblanc.
Very amazing and beautiful sculptures in the pyramid. Love the night scenes too.
Thanks for your lovely comment.
Luxor temple looks amazing. What a beautiful sculpture and the night pictures are fantabulous. Great photography.
I loved the view when it was dark !
Magnificent!
Paz
Really impressive and amazing monuments. Wonderful photos as always!
totally amazing Gil! Thank you for taking us to these magnificent sites. Do you think the architect in Washington D.C. copied those monuments? :)
Great photos! Which cruise did you join?
Oh wow! These are magnificent! :)
The views must have been spectacular especially at night! :)
Thanks for sharing! Have a wonderful week! :)
Breathtaking! Loved the night shots! They are elegant! Maybe you must start a photo calendar! There will be a lot of us who'd want to buy!
Diggings were ongoing right close to the Ram-headed sphinxes when we went there early in January this year. It was chilly in Cairo but Luxor was sweltering!
Can you imagine how magnificent this temple was back in its glory days thousands of years ago? That civilzation was so powerful! It makes one think.
Wonderful night photos, Gil..they are not often seen.
Beautiful shots of monuments. It would have been a great site in the glory days.
Hi Gil! These are splendid views of the monuments, beautiful the reliefs, I like so much the night pictures of the temple as well!
Happy new week :-)
Les photos de nuit sont somptueuses cependant la lumière du jour ne nuit pas à tes photos peuplées de petits personnages au pied des pierres.
Il croit me souvenir que l'obélisque de la place de la Concorde est un cadeau, nous ne devrons pas la renvoyer alors, ouf !
Hello,
Wonderful photos of magnificent places.I am thrilled and astonished at the amazing photos.Gorgeous,awe
inspiring.
Best wishes,
Joseph
breathtaking... absolutely beautiful~~
Your photos are really nice. I felt a little like I was traveling with you. Thank you for sharing.
JUST AMAZING!
Aloha from Waikiki
Comfort Spiral
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wow. the place is beautiful both in day and night.
You know Gil, I love all your photos but I am mesmerized with these! Only because only they are great! but its a place I so desperately wanting to go...and those huge Ramesses...is really something! Happy week ahead Gil, we are done hugging koalas and back to good ol' KL.
Magnifique! Karnak, Luxor...
Yes, officially the Concorde obelisk was a gift! Even the second obelisk was offered. Imagine, the transport and raising of these obelisks those days, some 3000 years ago; after the transport of the first obelisk to Paris in the beginning of the 19th century and the difficulties encountered, it was decided to leave the second one at Luxor. (Is it still "French"?) :-)
On se croirait presque Place de la Concorde à Paris;-)
Wonderful view on these magnificient temples....The night VIEW OVER THE TEMPLES is breathtakingly beautiful; the beautiful illuminations let it shine even more fascinating...!
GORGEOUS, Trotter!!!!!
have a great week
ciao ciao elvira
Truly impressive. So much work put into the columns and I love how the palm trees grow beside the ruins.
To walk there is to walk in awe of all the years these structures existed and how many feet have walked there.
Awesome photos, especially the night shots! Temple at night looks fabulous!
Thanks for this great tour:)
j.
I would like to see Luxur at night.
Amazing photos!
Joyce M
Very nice post! The pictures are amazing.
Temple at Luxor along with the statues are just gorgeous. seems to be a very interesting place to visit. thanks for the sharing.
regards
Since I made my first trip in winter, it was a pleasant 1 hour walk from Luxor to Karnak for me.
This temple is magnificent, and I was/am amazed at the sheer size of it. Your photographs are brilliant Gil, thanks for sharing and have a lovely day.
~celine
wow!!...the Pharaohs sure put in all their time and effort in building their legacy!!!!
Hi Everybody! Thank you very much for your kind words here at Blogtrotter Two. It’s interesting to note that this blog has only some twenty visitors a day while Blogtrotter keeps an average of more than one hundred fifty, notwithstanding the fact that it is closed since January this year... Amazing!! And the fact is that some of the traditional visitors and commentators here are getting more and more absent... So, thanks again to all of you who drop a line!!
Another interesting fact is that nobody mentioned the ithyphallic Amun; I wonder whether it was political correctness or the simple fact that nobody actually reads the post and notices it... ;)
Susu,
Great to bring back good memories to you!! We were staying in the ship, which was docked just in front of the temple, so the views were constant and actually awesome!!
Constance,
Well, Egypt is a common destination for tourists since tourism started many years ago; the amazing might be that it took me sixty years to get there for the first time... ;))
Sylvia,
My pleasure to share the views with you!! I think you have better start packing: the best season to visit just started and doesn’t last for long... ;)
P.N. Subramanian,
Thanks! The photographs depend on the computers’ monitors: as I changed the upload from 300/400px to 600/800px some monitors show it a bit digitally blurred, others show it perfectly... I’ve already experienced both... ;)
Eye,
If it is magnificent nowadays, just imagine how it would have been more than two thousand years ago in its glorious times...
Juka,
Wait to see the huge Ramses II in Abu Simbel... That pharaoh was a bit narcissistic to say the least... ;)
Diane,
Interesting that you like to see the tourists in the pictures to give perspective!! It’s always a source of difference of opinion between Mrs. Trotter and me, as she has your opinion and I prefer the pictures of the monuments without additional items to disperse attention... ;))
Magic,
You’re welcome! My pleasure!!
G@tto,
Would love to see the movie, but it is a private one and I don’t have the password to access it... ;)). I don’t think that anyone commenting here was there with Leblanc... ;))
Alice,
Sculptures in the pyramids? There must be some mistake: Luxor has no pyramids; and the Giza pyramids have no sculptures... ;)
Part Two:
Babli,
My pleasure to comment on your several and interesting blogs!!
The idea that the night pictures are fantabulous is quite flattering, but I’m afraid it doesn’t meet reality... ;)
Gattina,
Those are the most difficult pictures to take, at least for me: usually blurred... But it’s true that when it is dark you don’t see that rubbish that sometimes borders the side rows of Luxor avenues... ;)
Paz,
Indeed!!
Meda,
Thanks for returning to comment at Blogtrotter Two! I’m truly glad that you appreciated the post and the pictures!!
Lynn,
Actually there are three so-called «Cleopatra’s Needles» around the world: one in Paris, Place de A Concorde, another in London at the Victoria Embankment and the third in New York Central Park!! The one in Washington could have been copied by Mr. Pierre Charles L’Enfant, but actually was created a bit later, designed by Robert Mills in the 1840s to be concluded (capstone) on December 6, 1884... ;))
Jen,
We took the best that was available on the short notice time we had to decide to go: The Amarco Nile Cruise!!
Yvonne,
The views from the top deck of the ship, which was docked just in front of the temple, were quite nice, and had the great advantage of distance: the dust was a bit far away... ;))
Rakesh,
Thanks! For calendars we have already two experts around, no need for a third one, who actully isn’t any expert... ;) Let the job to Olivier at Evry, France and Susanne, somewhere in the States... Actually, two of the usual visitors who have been mostly absent from here lately...
Nomadic Pinoy,
We were there in February! As for the chilly in Cairo, I know what you mean: +17º!! That’s not chilly at all for our standards... ;)
The diggings resulted in the discovery of twelve new sphinxes, which were unearthed last month...
Pat,
That is exactly what I felt: how glorious it would have been two thousand and more years ago, furthermore with all the vibrant colours all those temples had... Amazing!!
Part Three:
Rajesh,
It surely was!!
Pietro,
You mentioned the reliefs (without pointing to Amun, I know...) and that is one of the most impressive features of this Egyptian adventure we engaged in as you’ll see in some future posts!! The reliefs, either high, bas or whatever..., are absolutely stunning!!
Lucie,
Tu vois moins de poussière la nuit; c’est ça la différence… ;))
En fait l’obélisque de la Place de la Concorde a été donné en 1830 par Méhémet Ali, vice-roi d'Égypte, à l'instigation de Jean-François Champollion. En fait, il a fait donation des deux obélisques qui étaient devant le temple de Louxor, mais seul un fut transporté vers la France. Le deuxième obélisque a été officiellement rendu de nouveau à l'Égypte par le Président Mitterrand… Alors, pas de souci, je crois… ;))
Joseph,
Thanks! The sites deserve all the qualities you address to the pictures; the photos, on the contrary, are just banal...
Mariposa,
Great to have you back!!
I’m just looking forward to seeing the old Avenue of the Sphinxes when its three kilometres will be unearthed and restored to former glory: it must be a terrific journey from Karnak to Luxor that way...
Flutietootie,
Thanks for your visit and first time comment at Blogtrotter Two!!
I’m glad you got the feeling of travelling together with this post!!
Cloudia,
Aloha!! Believe me: it’s much more than amazing!!
Lawstude,
Well, beautiful is probably not the best qualification I would use to describe it; but it’s surely magnificent!!
M.Kate,
As for the wish to go there, you only have to start packing... The best season, at least for me who am not acquainted with the temperatures of 40º centigrade and more, just started... Some people say it is cold in winter there in Egypt, but with the temperatures swinging between 14º and 20º Celsius, that seems to be absolutely offensive... ;)
Peter,
You are absolutely right! Both obelisks from Luxor were donated by Mehemet Ali to France. The problem is that it was so difficult to carry one of them to Paris those days that they left the second at the entrance of the temple... But, since President Mitterrand returned it to Egypt during his first seven years in post, it is no longer French... ;)
Part Four and final, for the time being:
Hélène,
Presque... Le problème, comme toujours, st dans le petit détail... Il y a beaucoup plus de poussière à Louxor… ;)
Elvira,
Great to have you back here!! A fresh feeling of Wonderful Tuscany illuminating this blog!! As for the night view, there was some humidity in the air, probably due to the fact that the Nile is just there around the corner, and in some pictures I didn’t notice that the camera lens was unclean...
Lady,
I’m not sure that those palms just grow like that near the ruins; I think that after excavation they decided to put it back the way they think it was some thousands of years ago... thus the palm trees... ;)
Maybe for some centuries these buildings were covered, at least partially, with sand and sometimes with water from the well-known Nile floods...
Joo,
I truly wonder what you see on those night pictures: for me they are always a bit blurred and mostly uninteresting... ;)
Joyce,
That’s not so difficult: you pack, fly, land and see... ;))
Unfortunately, we are not allowed to take pictures inside the Valley of Kings, which you can only visit during the day, so you definitely have to go there... ;)
Ron,
Thanks!! I’m grateful I can always count on you to drop a line!!
Seema,
Ramses II ordered so many statues of himself that the result is always a magnificent one!! And if you have time (and money) you may stay some time at the Winter Palace Hotel (reading Agatha Christie’s book) or, from September nest year, straight at the Old Cataract Hotel, where the «Death on the Nile» was written... ;)
Celine,
It’s absolutely fabulous that Karnak temple... And the walk you made on those side streets (far from interesting, unless when close to the Nile...) would be made in the Avenue of the Sphinxes in the future... Hopefully!!
Star,
You are right, but Ramses II definitely goes beyond any of the others Pharaohs Egypt has known... ;)
f a n t a s t i c!!!
Hi Ola!
Thank you for your visit and first btime comments here!! I'm truly glad you enjoyed!!
It's rare to see the giant Ramesses statures with people to give scale. Thank you. Lovely evening shots! I really enjoyed this entry.
Ted,
Hope you're feeloing better!!
Wait to see Ramesses in Abu Simbel to see what's true giant!!
Those structures look very imposing. I enjoyed the night shots a lot.
How are you enjoying this festive season?
Many thanks for your patience, and for visiting Norwich Daily Photo and leaving your comment. Come visit again tomorrow!
Joy,
They are more than imposing...
I'm eating too much... ;)
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