Private Full Day Tour: Dendera & Abydos Temples from Luxor

Khaled the guide and Ahmed the driver offer to us a unique experience in the Marvelous temples of Abydos and Dendera. They prick up as at the Luxor reception in early morning and after 3 hours drive through the western desert in total air conditioned confort our professional driver bring us to this unique place in the human history that was perfectly explained in the highlight by our knowledgeable guide. I’m looking forward to returning discovery the Egyptian antiquities with Ahmed and Khaled.

Beautiful hidden temple of Abydos really worth it. Our driver Ahmed was very good and the guide Khaled was very helpful

I was advised by my guide in Cairo not to miss Abydos and Dendera whilst staying in Luxor. Having never used Viator before, I chose this trip because of a positive review about a certain guide. This was not the guide we ended up with, but our guide, Khaled, was punctual, polite and personable. He escorted us to a very swish, comfortable car to take us on our long journey to Abydos on an extremely hot day. The drive to Abydos is, apparently, better than it was due to the opening of a new highway. This enabled our driver to speed along at a sometimes nerve wracking pace (considering the stray dogs who meander onto the road as they please) but he got us to the temple in air conditioned comfort. I knew it was less frequented than the easier to reach sites but I was astonished to see that there was only a handful of people there on our arrival, so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. After guiding us through the temple and explaining the highlights, Khaled sat and chatted with my mum while I had another look around and took the obligatory photos. We were then driven to Dendera, stopping at a little stall in Abydos on the way, where our driver bought some little Egyptian bananas for us to try (a thoughtful touch on Khaled's part). Dendera is an impressive temple because of how well the colours have been preserved, and it was interesting to see a temple dedicated to Hathor. Again, after showing us around, Khaled found a shady spot for him and mum to wait for me to have another look and take more photos. On our arrival in Luxor we were taken to a perfume shop to smell papyrus scent, where Khaled left us with the guy from the shop. We felt under pressure to buy something, so my mum made what felt like an obligatory purchase (the second of our trip, as often happens with guided tours). Khaled then asked if there was anywhere else we'd like to go or anything we needed before returning us to our hotel. I asked to call at a shop to buy some crisps. Our driver then bought them on my behalf so I wouldn't be charged the tourist price. A very kind gesture. This is a good value day trip and I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to visit Abydos and Dendera whilst staying in Luxor.