Deir el-Bahari and the Qurna road in Luxor

The painted tombs on Sheikh Abd el-Qurna

Tombs of the Nobles (Sheikh Abd el-Qurna) are cut into the hillside immediately south of Deir el-Bahari, a honeycomb of black doorways in pale limestone above the ruins of a mudbrick village. The painting inside is the best in Luxor. Banquets, grape-treading and vine-covered ceilings run across the walls and roofs of chambers you can cross in two strides.

Tickets are sold in small clusters, Nakht and Menna, Rekhmire and Sennefer, Ramose and Userhat, at E£50 to E£200 per cluster for a foreign adult. Payment is by card only. Which tombs are unlocked rotates day to day, so ask at the ticket kiosk when you get there instead of promising yourself one name.

The chambers are tiny, and a group has to split to get inside. Photography is restricted in some of them and banned in others.

Carter's dig house over the hill

Howard Carter House (Valley of the Kings road) is about 1.5km over the hill from Deir el-Bahari, a domed mudbrick bungalow with a white-trimmed arched veranda, alone on a bare desert knoll. Carter ran his digging from these rooms. Entry is E£220 for a foreign adult, the doors are open 06:00 to 17:00, and you rarely queue here.

Next to the house is a full-size 1:1 concrete replica of Tutankhamun's tomb. You can study the painted burial chamber there without a crowd pressing behind you. Go after the terraces, while the Valley of the Kings road is still quiet.

Seti I where the desert meets the cultivation

Mortuary Temple of Seti I (Qurna) is about 2.5km east of Deir el-Bahari, on the line where the desert stops and the sugarcane starts. A compact white limestone portico of papyrus-bundle columns carries sunk relief cut sharper than anything on Hatshepsut's terraces. A palm grove and green fields stand behind it, and the cliff is out of the frame.

Entry is E£200 for a foreign adult. Park at the gate. The temple takes groups easily and almost never has one, so the carving is usually yours for as long as you want it.

Alabaster on the Qurna road

Imhotep Alabaster Luxor (Qurna road) is an open-fronted yard where men hollow honey-coloured alabaster by hand with bow drills. Finished jars sit backlit on the shelves and glow translucent. Watching costs nothing, and pieces run from E£300 to several thousand.

The road between the Valley of the Kings and Deir el-Bahari carries more than 80 workshops, and most are lookalikes trading on the same word painted on the sign. This one offers tea, takes cards and lets you look without a sales pitch.

Dawn balloons over the Theban cliff

Hod-Hod Soliman Balloons inflates at dawn in a field of alfalfa and sugarcane, a dozen envelopes filling with burners lit, Hatshepsut's terraces and the pink Theban cliff behind the launch line. The company has flown since 1993 and is licensed and inspected by the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority.

A shared basket runs E£3,000 to E£6,500 per person. A private basket costs two to three times that. The cheapest per-head rate is the eight to 16 person basket, and hotel pickup with the Nile crossing is normally included. Luxor operators grounded all flights from 1 June to the end of August 2026 for heat, which leaves October to April as the window.

Lunch near the terraces

Nour El Gourna (Gourna) is 1.6km from Hatshepsut's temple, which makes it the stop at the end of a morning on the terraces. The family cooks from its own land, with its own poultry and vegetables, and serves on a mudbrick-and-palm-beam terrace strung with lanterns and vine. Trays of tahini, salads and flatbread come to the table first. Three courses with drinks run E£200 to E£450, and vegetarians are fed properly.

Marsam Hotel Luxor is the old University of Chicago excavation house, a 1939 mudbrick building with domed roofs. Wooden tables sit under tamarisk and bougainvillea in a walled kitchen garden, and the Ramesseum's columns rise just over that wall. Most of what reaches the table was grown 20 metres away.

Non-guests can eat here, and set lunch is E£600 to E£750 a head. Ring ahead for more than six so the kitchen can pick enough from the garden.

Kings Valley Restaurant (Wadi al-Muluk road) is a roof terrace on an old stone-and-mudbrick house at the Valley of the Kings gate, looking across bare desert to the Theban cliffs and Carter's domed bungalow. It serves breakfast through dinner, which covers a 06:00 start at the terraces. It takes cards and digital payment, and the kitchen handles vegetarian and vegan dishes without fuss. A meal runs E£250 to E£500 a head.

Happy Farm Restaurant & Café (Qurna) is about 2km from the terraces, near the alabaster workshops. Tables sit shaded in a working garden of herb beds and vegetable rows, with animals about, mud walls around them and the Theban hills beyond. Everything is picked that morning, and a meal runs E£200 to E£400 a head. Come here when the car parks at the terraces are full. The garden is quiet, booking is sensible, and the staff will walk you round the beds.

Beds on the west bank

Marsam is the oldest guesthouse on the west bank, and rooms run E£1,900 to E£8,500 a night with breakfast. Nour El Gourna lets rooms as well, from E£1,400.

New Memnon Hotel (by the Colossi of Memnon) is about 3.5km south of Deir el-Bahari, a low whitewashed three-storey building on a farm lane. Balconied rooms look over a small palm-fringed pool, and the Colossi stand at the end of the street. A 06:00 start is easier to repeat when there is water to come back to in the afternoon.

The hotel has 22 rooms, family rooms among them, and a double with breakfast is E£1,500 to E£3,500. Book well ahead for the October to April season.

Before you go

Hatshepsut's temple shuts at 16:00 in winter, and no balloon flies between 1 June and the end of August 2026. Carry a card for the Deir el-Bahari ticket office and for the tomb clusters on the hill.

See the Luxor guide and the Luxor hotel search.