Photo : René Hourdry — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Luxor · Karnak, east bank
Karnak Temple Complex
Two thousand years of building for a single sanctuary — and a hall of one hundred and thirty-four columns.
Karnak isn't a temple so much as an accumulation: each pharaoh added a court, a pylon, an obelisk, over nearly two millennia. The set piece is the great hypostyle hall, a forest of one hundred and thirty-four columns, the tallest above twenty metres, still carrying reliefs and traces of colour.
The extra bit
Enter at opening and go straight to the hypostyle hall: for twenty minutes you'll have it almost to yourself, and the low light lifts the reliefs.
Know before you go
Allow two hours minimum, three to walk the sacred lake and the side courts. Very little shade: come before 9am or after 3:30pm. The evening sound-and-light show is a different experience, take it or leave it.
