9A – Luxor, Egypt: Tombs, Tickets, and Tut and more. 12/24/22 and 12/25/22

Greetings-

We set out on Sunday for the Valley of the Kings and then the Valley of the Queens – all day, death. Tombs, tombs, and more tombs. 

Abdul picked us up and we drove across the bridge over the Nile to the west side… arriving at the Valley of the Kings about 40 minutes later. Roads are pretty worn– mostly dirt and have lots of rocks and bumps. There are also a lot of soldiers (guards) that you pass from time to time along the road. We bought our tickets for the Valley of the Kings (the prices for tickets at all official places of interest have price tiers, with foreigners paying a great deal more than locals—not sure the exact difference because the lists for locals are in Arabic). I’m fine with that, but I will say the prices were not cheap. 

As soon as we got the tickets, we went through the metal detectors; we have become very expert at getting the digital tickets to open the turnstiles—it requires a bit of rubbing and moving your scan code over the reader. We figured out that to get to the area with the tombs you need to hop onto a little open-air electric cart (holds about 12 people) and that we did. We sort of dashed onto one, because it was obvious that most people (maybe nearly everyone) was with a tour group and their “leader” was in front of each of the carts with a big sign noting the tour group. Then it turned out you needed to pay a small fee to use the cart (the tour groups had probably prepaid), so we got off and went to another ticket booth to get our tickets for the cart. Jumped on another one and off we went. They let you out just in front of the area where vendors are trying to sell you all sorts of things that are branded with King Tut and other dead leaders. We passed.

We visited three different tombs and then decided we should see the King Tut tomb, so we walked up to that entrance. At each entrance they punch your ticket. When we got to the King Tut entrance we learned that you needed a different ticket (in addition to the regular ticket), so we walked down and took the little cart again and went back to the ticket booth to get the additional ticket. Costs as much to see King Tut tomb as it did to see all the others combined But, here we were, how could we not visit King Tut?

With the new ticket in hand, we went down about two or three flights ad there he was… short guy… His head is visible and his toes (see photo above of toes of King Tut); the body is in a shroud. His tomb is obviously more decorated than the others, but his tomb was actually pretty barren as most of the decorations were taken away and put into other museums across Egypt (and probably also around the world). He died at 19 (!!) — last pharaoh of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Then we headed to the Valley of the Queens, which is less visited than the Kings (naturally) and also less well preserved. But we decided we needed to see Queen Nefatari (not Nefertiti). Known as “Lady of Grace,” “Lady of All Lands,” “Wife of the Strong Bull,” “Great of Praises” and many other nicknames, Queen Nefatari was clearly one of the most famous Egyptian queens and an iconic woman of Ancient Egypt… obviously a powerhouse, based on her tomb.

Like other kings of Egypt, Rameses II had a large harem of wives, but at any one time only one wife was considered the ‘chief queen.’ Rameses was a busy guy and had 8 queens over his lifetime, but Queen Nefatari was supposedly his first and most beloved. The tomb of Nefatari was the best preserved and most amazing of all of the tombs we visited, with colors still rich and preserved.

Then we made our way back to our hotel and quickly headed out again—for dinner at Al Moudira, a very small, elegant hotel on the West Bank of the Nile within the Al Moudira Hotel. We had tried to book that hotel months ago, but it was impossible; it’s booked many many months in advance. So, we thought we’d visit it and have dinner. As the taxi drove down the remote road to Al Moudira we noticed there weren’t any lights on the streets or buildings. When we approached the hotel, they came out to tell us that dinner was still being served but that all power was out and everything would be by candlelight.

 We got settled in the amazing dining room, began to order and voila the lights came back on to quite an applause from the assembled guests.

Dinner was not great, but the setting made it all worthwhile. The story of the hotel is interesting; conceived by a wealthy Lebanese woman who had lived in many places around the world including 10 years in Tuscany. She decided to settle in Luxor on the West bank and hired an architect who specialized in building traditions of a bygone era. Every detail was considered and the frescoes on the walls are superb. We strolled the grounds and then headed back to our hotel to pack and prepare to leave the next morning.

Best –

Fern