Travel to Luxor and you will know why it is one of Egypt's great tourist attractions. It is also commonly known as the world's largest open air museum. Tourists have been visiting the area since the Greco-Roman times, so you won't be the first! There are so many splendid temples and monuments to visit .
Luxor is an obligatory stop for the first time cultural tourist to Egypt and for many repeat visitors. A second attraction is the natural beauty of the Theban Mountains and the Nile river, which offer outstanding scenery for all types of tourists. A third attraction is the local village life present in the Luxor and throughout the river valley, relevant for the cultural tourist. This beauty is not at all unique to Luxor as it is found throughout the Nile river valley and in many of the country's Oases. Finaly a fourth attraction is the mild, dry sunny weather of the region for most of the year particularly in the winter months.

Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt about 680 kilometres (422 miles) south of Cairo. The modern city of Luxor is the site of ancient Thebes, which extended across both banks of the Nile River. The antiquities on both banks of the Nile in the region of Luxor constitute the area's key attraction.The antiquities of Luxor represent some of the finest examples of mankind's early civilisation and rank among its greatest cultural achievements. These sites, and their dramatic Nile valley setting, have placed Luxor on the exclusive UNESCO World Heritage Site list as one of only 560 natural and cultural sites worldwide.
Luxor is governed by special statues (The Higher Council for the City of Luxor) that allow it more autonomy then other political areas of Egypt. One thing you might notice is that various government and other buildings confirm to an 'ancient' building code. Particularly, the National bank of Egypt ( located near the Winter Palace ), and the railway station are all designed to appear as pharaonic constructions . All of this occurred after the Egyptianization of the modern town resulting mostly from the mania that resulted from Howard Carter's discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun. As one might think, the city has all the amenities tourists might expect, including a variety of hotels, bars, nightclubs and restaurants.

The Luxor area fulfils different functions regarding the tourism that it serves. The role Luxor currently is playing for Egypt's tourism is really important:-
1- A Prime Destination for culture tourism. Luxor serves as the primary gateway to Upper Egypt.
2- A Base for the Cruise Industry. Luxor serves as the main port for Nile Cruisers. Nearly all cruises operate between Luxor and Aswan as the extended cruise between Cairo and Upper Egypt has been discontinued.
3- An Emerging Destination for long - stay Vacationers . The long - term vacationers favour some resorts in the city, and a number of homes and guesthouses located on both banks of the river. As temporary residents for several weeks or months, their average daily expenditure is typically much less than the general average for tourists.
4- A prime Destination for Day-long Excursions. Tourists lodged in Cairo, on The Red Sea cost or in Aswan can easily purchase day-long excursions by bus or airplane to visit Luxor. These generate the least benefit for the local economy.

In November 1996, the Luxor study Area's population totalled 361,138 persons. Of these, 153,758 ( 42,6%) lived in the city of Luxor ( including Gourna) and the remainder 207,380 (57.4%) lived in the Markhaz ( the city of Bayadiya and 15 village administrations on both sides of the river).
Between now and 2020, if pro-active planning does not occur, the natural pressures of population growth and increased tourism will pose grave risks to Luxor's man-made, culture, and natural resources. A coherent and coordinated plan is needed to protect the character and quality of Luxor.

The Open Air Museum
It has a collection of monuments that was discovered during an excavation inside the third pylon. You can see blocks from the beautiful Red Chapel of Hatshepsut, which have only recently been reconstructed into an actual structure. That Chapel served as a shrine for the baroque of Amun and whose site is today occupied by the chapel of Philip Arhidaeus. Here you can also observe the remains of the splendid White Chapel of Senwosret I. The scenes carved on the stones show the kings' offering to his mighty god Amun-Re and Amun in his ithyphallic form. The ancient administrative areas of Egypt are listed in the form of columns on the parapet. The entire region of Egypt is represented on the chapel of the Pharaoh who is the guarantor of the order established by Amun. Located across from the Great Court, opposite to the entrance of Ramesses III Temple at Karnak.

Luxor History
Thebes, through its long history, was a great city which occupied a vast area extending for many kilometres on both sides of the Nile. Thebes was also known as Waset, which means dominion , and was referred to as Niout, a word which means '' the city'' and is no small indication of its enormous prestige. Homer, on the other hand, used the epithet '' Thebes-with-hundred-Gates''
In the Old Kingdom, Thebes was the seat of the provincial administration of the entire southern part of Egypt. Its real rise to prominence came toward the end of the twenty-first century BC, in Dynasty XI, when, after a period of strife and civil war, the Princes of Thebes once more united the whole of Egypt.
The rulers of Thebes held dominion over the country from their province until the kings of Dynasty XII moved the capital to Ithet-tawy down the river from Thebes '' near Al Fayoum today''. After the second Intermediate period, which saw the domination of the Nile Valley by the Hyksos from Western Asia, it was again the Theban family which reunited the two Kingdoms, Upper and Lower Egypt, after having defected the enemy. Now the seat of power remained at Thebes, and under the Kings of Dynasties XVIII, XIX and XX - the Tuthmosis and Ramessides - the local god Amun '' the hidden'', became the chief deity of Egypt and of the territories conquered abroad between the Sudan in the south and Anatolia and Mesopotamia to the northeast.
Splendid temples were erected at Thebes, to the glory of Amun and his family ( wife Mut and son Khonsou) at Luxor and Karnak at the East Bank, and to the memory of the dead rulers on the West Bank such as Deir El-Bahri, the temple of king Seti I, the Ramesseum and Medinet Habou. All the power and wealth of the far-reaching Egyptian Empire were concentrated at Thebes.The worship of God Amun of Thebes, to which the great temple Karnak owes its existence, and of other Theban deities Montu, Khonsou, and Mout, brought with it a flourishing of architecture and the arts of relief and sculpture in the round unparalleled elsewhere in the Nile Valley. Schools of artisans, and especially of expert stone sculptors, must have existed there for nearly 2000 years, and generations of faithful followers of the Gods of Thebes deposited in the temple not only figures of the their favourite Gods, Amun and Osiris, but also statues of themselves. Statuary include kings as well as commoners, priests and officials alike.
During the Third Intermediate Period, Thebes had its own dynasty of priest-kings, and when the Kushites invaded Egypt in the middle of the eighth century BC, the new rulers from the Sudan established their religious centre at Thebes for nearly a hundred years. After the Assyrians sacked Thebes briefly, it was restored under the Saites ( 26th dynasty, 664-525 BC).
Persian kings (525BC) are said to have destroyed it again, but it greatly benefited from the rule of Alexander the great and his successors, the Ptolemies. It is not surprising that soon after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the great (332BC) the building of monumental temples and sanctuaries of the Pharaonic period was continued. The earliest Ptolemaic structure is that of Philip Arrhidaeus at Karnak, a half-brother of the great Macedonian, who nominally ruled Egypt from 323 to 317 BC . Soon thereafter a number of other building activities took place, new sanctuaries were erected on both banks of the Nile, and existing structures, such as the second Pylon of Karnak, were newly decorated. These construction activities at Theban temples also continued during the Imperial Period.
The Romans maintained a garrison at Thebes and laid out a large military establishment on both sides of Luxor temple which has given rise to the present name of the town, a Europeanized version of the Arabic name, Al Uqsur , ''The Castles''. Today, however, the river road has covered up a good deal of the Roman installations so that only a few ruins are still visible on the west side of the temple.
Although Herodotus, who visited the Nile Valley in the fifth century BC and described what he saw and heard, may be called one of the first foreign tourist in Egypt, the stream of curious visitors of Thebes really began with Diodorus of Sicily who came in 60BC. He was followed, decade after decade, by many others, among them the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Special attractions at Thebes were the royal tombs in the valley of the Kings that were called '' Syringes'' or ''Pan Pipes'', due to their parallel entrance corridors.
Another attraction, primarily during the Roman Period, was the so-called Colossi of Memnon because of its '' music of the spheres'', which is attested by literary documents and especially by numerous visitors' graffiti. In the same way, pilgrims in search of healing left their names on several temples, especially in the sanctuary of Dier El-Bahari. By the second century, Christianity began to spread in Egypt. After AD 392, the practice of heathen rites was forbidden by threat of severe penalties. In AD 641, the Arabs brought Islam to Egypt; the mosque of Abou El Hagag is one of Egypt's first Islamic buildings at Luxor.
luxor travel guide

Useful links

Here you are some useful websites that may help you to learn more about Luxor:

www.al-diwan.fr

www.luxortravelguide.com

http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/

Karnak Temple

This vast complex of temples, obelisks, sphinxes, and very hefty Pharaonic paraphernalia took more than 1,300 years to build, reaching its greatest heights during the 19th Dynasty (13th century BC). It sits one and a half miles north of downtown Luxor, and with 62 acres open to the public, it will require a full afternoon of your time just to cover the highlights, including the Hypostyle Hall's forest of 76-foot-tall columns, the Colossus of Ramses II, and the Great Festival Hall of Thutmose III. The Sound and Light show each evening is widely hailed as being the finest of its kind in the world. Go if you must, but try Karnak during the day as well.