Luxor: a balloon at first light, an Egyptologist on the West Bank, a felucca at dusk
14 playbooks shared · added to 34 trips
- 4:15 am1Pickup at 04:15 and the ferry across in the darkLuxor
Balloon operators collect between 04:00 and 04:30 depending on sunrise, so this shifts by an hour across the year - confirm the pickup time by WhatsApp the night before, every time. Included in the flight price. The crossing is a small motor launch, ten minutes, freezing in January; take the layer you will want at 1,000 feet.
8 min by train or taxi · 4.7 km - 5 am2Private basket over Dra Abu el-Naga at first lightLuxor
A seat in a 24-person basket is 80 to 100 USD; a private basket for two is around 600 and it is the difference between craning over shoulders and turning wherever you like. Flights launch at sunrise and last 45 to 60 minutes. Check the operator has current civil aviation certification and ask what their cancellation-for-wind policy is - Luxor scrubs flights regularly and reputable outfits refund or rebook without argument. The inflation on the ground, with fifteen envelopes lighting up at once in the dark, is half the show. You drift over Hatshepsut's terraces, the Colossi and the sugarcane, and land in a farmer's field.
8 min by train or taxi · 2.1 km - 7 am3Breakfast at Marsam, and the car for the dayLuxor
Mudbrick hotel built for the Chicago House archaeologists, in the fields between the Ramesseum and the Valley of the Nobles, and breakfast under the trees there is the calmest hour of the day. Around 45 USD gets you a car and driver for the whole West Bank until evening, which you want - the sites are kilometres apart and taxis at Valley of the Kings gate charge by desperation.
8 min by train or taxi · 1.9 km - 8:15 am4Valley of the Kings, plus Seti I, with a private EgyptologistLuxor
750 EGP covers three tombs of your choice; Seti I is 2,000 EGP extra per person and it is the finest painted tomb in Egypt, 137 metres of it, so pay it and skip Tutankhamun's, which is a small bare room with a mummy. About 120 USD for a licensed Egyptologist for the day - a real one reads the hieroglyphs to you and cannot come inside the tombs, because guiding inside is banned, so they brief you at the door and debrief you outside. Everything on the West Bank is cashless now: EGP notes will not get you through the gate. Take the tram up the valley, walk down.
10 min walk · 800 m - 11:30 am5Deir el-Bahari, Hatshepsut's terracesLuxor
200 EGP. There is no shade anywhere on the three terraces and the stone reflects everything back at you - in January that is pleasant and in June it is dangerous. Go up to the top colonnade for the Punt expedition reliefs and the chapel of Anubis at the north end, which most people miss because it is behind a corner. From up there you can see the ridge you would walk over to reach the Valley of the Kings, which is how the workmen got to work.
8 min by train or taxi · 1.9 km - 12:45 pm6Nefertari, ten minutes and no longerLuxor
1,400 EGP a head, 150 visitors a day, and the visit is capped at ten minutes to control humidity - which sounds like a swindle until you are in there. The most intensely coloured painted surfaces to survive from the ancient world, blue ceilings with gold stars. It closes for conservation at short notice, so check the day before rather than the month before. No photography, and they mean it here.
- 5:30 pm7Felucca off the corniche as the sun goesLuxor
Hire the whole boat, not a seat - about 2,000 EGP for two hours with a captain, negotiated down from roughly double that, which is the opening price everywhere on the corniche. Say clearly that you want to sail up and cross, not go to Banana Island, unless you actually want the banana farm. No motor: if there is no wind you drift, and drifting is the point. The sun sets behind the Theban hills you were flying over at dawn, and the light on the west cliffs at 18:00 is the best thing in Luxor.
- 7:45 pm8Dinner at 1886, in the Winter PalaceLuxor
Around 160 USD for two with wine, in a 1907 dining room where Howard Carter announced he had found the tomb. Jacket expected for men and they will turn you away in shorts. Book a day ahead. If that is more than the day deserves, walk two minutes to Sofra in the back streets instead - a fraction of the price and arguably the better Egyptian food; this stop is here because a day that started in a balloon can carry it.