Luxor: The World's Greatest Open-Air Museum

Luxor isn't just a city in Egypt—it's the place with the highest concentration of ancient monuments per square kilometer anywhere on Earth. Here, on the banks of the Nile, three and a half thousand years ago stood Thebes, capital of Ancient Egypt at the height of its power. The pharaohs of the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties built magnificent temples and carved tombs into the cliffs that still stagger the imagination today.

The Nile divides the city into two distinctly different parts. The East Bank is living, modern Luxor with hotels, r...