Our cruise got off to a bit of a bad start because os some confusion about when we were supposed to show up and start the cruise. The website and Abercrombie and Kent's call center said noon, but our travel agent said 9am, and had organized a car to take us there at 8:30am. We suspected that he'd set up a tour of various alabaster factories, papyrus museums and other commission generating tourist traps that was going to waste our morning, so we set up our own trip for the morning, taking us to some of the West Bank sites that were not on the itinerary (Habu Temple, the Rammaseum and the Tombs of the Nobles).However, the guy was being totally straight with us, so when we showed up at 11am, we found out that the trip to the West Bank (Valley and the Kings and Valley of the Queens and Hatshepsut's temple) had left a couple of hours before... Our own fault for not trusting people. So we ended up scrambling and getting a private guide and car to take us to those sights.
Since my knowledge of Ancient Egypt mostly comes from Las Vegas casinos and movies starring the Rock, I didn't realize that there are not actually any pyramids at Luxor. The tombs are interesting but the temples are really impressive.
The first picture is of some guys by the outer wall or pylon of Habu temple - note the carved relief in the background of Ramses III smiting his enemies. Lot of smiting went on apparently. Scond pic is of colossi of Ramses II, of Ozymandius fame, from the aptly named Ramesseum, his funerary temple. Th4se guys didn't build pyramids, but they really went big on the temples.
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