Luxor the magnificent

Our morning is for visiting Luxor Temple. WOW! Luxor means, 'the palaces.' It was the capital of the New Kingdom. Outside it, there's a row of 65 sphinxes which originally went all the way to the Karnak Temple on the other side of town. Currently they are pulling down buildings to recreate that road. It is believed that there were 3000 sphinxes in ancient times. Luxor was abandoned and the temple filled with sand; a mosque was built on that level in the Middle Ages.

This edifice is vast! The front of a temple is called the pylons, the two tall buildings with a gateway in the middle. There's a wonderful granite obelisk. The other one is in Paris, sent there by King Mohammad Ali in the early 1800s - I think I wrote about it earlier. Such a pity. Four stone baboons at the bottom. There are huge, broken statues. I photograph the foot of one. It's 1m 50cm from heel to toe and the middle toenail is 10cm. At least 3m to the knee. It was wonderful to have plenty of time here. The pillars are massive, the statues are massive, the rooms are massive... do you get the picture? Overwhelming!