2011: Our Egyptian Adventure: "Free" day in Luxor; Thursday 7 April

As the title suggests, we had one free day in Luxor :) without a tour guide or driver. We had previously decided that we'd visit the Luxor Museum, maybe do a little shopping, wander the town and relax by the gorgeous pool.

We made our way to breakfast around 9am. It was quite a busier scene than we'd previously seen--many more tourists and much more staff. The plates were actually cleared off the table while we went to get more things at the stocked buffet. But, it took longer to get coffee and the items were not replenished as quickly. It was a definite improvement but not even close to awesome (see, Mena House Oberoi!).

We had made plans for "our" taxi driver Mohammed Ali to meet us around 10am for the short ride to the Luxor Museum. He was on time and off we went. Luxor was bustling; fun to see! We got to the museum and he agreed to wait for us. We walked down the very much under construction street to the museum entrance, paid the fee and were directed to the annex-like thing that included a cafe and gift shop. The man there said there was a movie and we misunderstood what he meant so stood around like "duncof americans" for a little while before going in. Glad we saw the short film--nice introduction to the museum collection.

We left the film area and walked a few feet to the entrance. The museum is not huge but it has some great statues and two mummies and King Tut stuff, including a full carriage. We wandered around for awhile and looked at everything with maybe 20 other tourists total while we were there. It was well done and made me wish, again, that the Egyptian Museum in Cairo was renovated or redone already--so sad that those amazing treasures are so badly treated...

Outside the very nice Luxor Museum

Good to see the horse getting a little shade

Afterwards, we met our driver and stopped for some water on the way back to the Old Winter Palace. I was pretty ready for lunch (fruit in the room) and a relax by the pool, since it was our last chance to do that. Hubby and bro went to lunch poolside before a shopping stop. We all met up at the pool later on.

I love the pool area at the Old Winter Palace--it's absolutely gorgeous and you really feel like you're somewhere special. Still not totally impressed with the pool staff but that didn't at all detract from my enjoyment of the pool.

At Sunset, we headed back to the room to change for dinner. We decided on Sofra (again) because we enjoyed the food and loved the setting. Hubby had checked out the list of other recommended restaurants and felt they were all kinda strip-mall-y setting wise, so back to Sofra we went. It didn't disappoint!

After dinner, Mohammed Ali drove us back to the OWP where we had a nice nightcap in the Piano Bar. None of us wanted to go back to our rooms because we knew it was the end of our time in Luxor. And what a lovely time it had been!