After we'd visited the West Bank and the Valley of the Kings as a group, the next day I hoped to take a balloon ride over the the same area but the wind wasn't cooperating; we'd have blown over Luxor's airport! But I went back over myself on the cheap, easy ferry, and with the help of a guide and cabbie, I went to various temples and visited Sheikh abd el-Qurna and New Gourna.
More than a bit prettified. But once you got down inside, the interior of the tombs was spectacular. We saw the Ramses tombs (II, then Merenptah and Ramses V/VI) and I was astonished at how beautiful they are and how much is still intact.
The tombs of the Nobles in Old Gourna were fantastic. Dancing girls, lute players and massage givers, workmen, travelers with their giraffe, were all there.
OLD Gourna's (Sheikh abd el-Qurna) residents have a certain renown for being able to bring up suspiciously authentic Egyptian relics from their cellars. See New Gourna in the Luxor tab.
The Ramesseum is of course Ramses II’s. It is also the home of the fallen colossus known as Ozymandius.
The temple of Seti I, father of Ramses. A wall shows a great battle and lots of dead Syrians and Nubians. From the top you can see over to Howard Carter’s house and that of Lord Carnavaron.
Medinet Habu is the funerary temple of Ramses III. Many bright beautiful walls here.