Day 3: Luxor Temple

It was a bad, mostly sleepless night, and when the morning came, although I was feeling a little better, I was pretty tired and wrung-out from the night. I told DH to go ahead and tour the next temple without me, and I'd see how I felt later that day for the next site.

So off he went to visit Dendera Temple. I stayed behind and slept, and by the time the group had arrived back, eaten lunch and were ready for the next site at 1630, I was more or less on my feet and had even choked down some dry toast. Damned if I was going to miss any more of Egypt's treasures. (It was bad enough that the group came back raving of Dendera. Many said, upon completion of the tour, that it was their favourite site. All the more reason to go back again.)

We visited Luxor Temple next. Dusk was falling, and although the temple was beautiful during the day, the columns and statuary lit from behind was a little other-worldly.









After we had a good crawl around the temple, we next visited a perfume shop. They made exquisite mouth-blown glass perfume vials on-site, and treated us to a showy demonstration before we got to sniff the many perfume oils. DH and I treated ourselves to some perfumes, and his sister treated us to one of the pretty vials.





Even the shop was exquisite. In the family for generations, every surface was intricately carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It was a little overwhelming, actually... thousands of glass perfume bottles, each different, hand-painted and lovely; mirrors everywhere, and of course the thick scent of the perfume oils pervading one's nose. One of those "this could only happen in an Arab country" moments.