Lovely Luxor

Luxor, lovely Luxor. How can one best describe it? Outside the normal tourist haunts one finds a beautiful people. Egyptians are always ready to help and always with a smile. Sometimes of course they are keen to help when no help is actually required, but their offer is always genuine!

The heat of summer is best avoided, but between October and April the sky is nearly always a bright, startling blue, with sunshine throughout the day and the slow pace of life automatically slows your pace and gladdens your heart. The call to prayer adds to the feeling and one sees people tucked away with their prayer mat, stopping for a few minutes to pray. Majestic palm trees, donkeys and camels ambling past. It all adds to one’s sense of well being. Driving or walking through the countryside, scenes that are positively Biblical unfold in front of your eyes. Egyptian people toiling in the fields resemble almost totally scenes that one can find on the walls of tombs, unchanged from Pharaonic times.

The Food

Wonderful fresh fruit and vegetables await you at a fraction of the cost we find them in the West. Tomatoes that really smell “tomatoey” as if they have just been picked, which of course, they probably have. One sees donkey carts laden with fresh produce making their way to the market stalls and you know that you are eating really fresh fruit and vegetables which have not been sprayed with anything. There is something rather nice about eating things that are in season, rather than being able to buy them throughout the year, as we can in the West.

You can find just about anything you need and if it isn’t readily available, there is always someone who can find it, make it, produce it for you in next to no time. It is lovely to have clothes made for you in beautiful soft Egyptian cotton and to collect it within a day or two. Dusty little side streets that contain a myriad of different goods, quite different from the tourist bazaars, all await you.

History

Then there is the history. Stroll through ancient temples and visualize the world of the Pharaohs. Transport yourself through the millennia to the world and culture of the Ancient Egyptians, ready to unfold by way of the hieroglyphics and tomb paintings, some of which look as if they were surely done only yesterday. Must see stops include:

• the Valley of the Kings
• the temple complex of Luxor
• the temple complex of Karnak
• Medinet Habu
• the Tombs of the Nobles

There’s lots to see in Luxor – you won’t be bored, for sure.

The Luxor Charm

Living here, as I do, I have found a culture totally opposite to one I am accustomed to. Lessons I have learned about this different culture and about myself – that the precious moments in a day can be quiet and slowed down; that reusing possessions can be a virtue and that opening one’s heart and mind to a different people and culture can bring about an appreciation of how all humans share a connection and can awaken a part of yourself that you never knew existed. Should others, by reading my experiences, come to Luxor and enjoy the charms and delight that make Egypt what it is, then my writing will have been for very good purpose.

To Learn More

Want to know more about the Luxor Charm? Margaret is the author of Living the Egyptian Dream, where she explores the delights and disappointments of her time in Egypt. You can purchase a copy today via the links below.

Photos by kayugee, girolame, charlie philips, apdk

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