I've been to the Valley a few times, most recently with Chrisopatra, and it's a wonderful place even though it's lifeless and parched, with the sun beating down, rocks and pebbles underfoot, tombs gaping and the tomb guards inviting you in. Entering a tomb is most strange in a sense - not least handing over the entry ticket - it is, after all, a grave. A very old grave, but a grave, a last resting place. And if you pick the right tomb to enter, you're presented with glorious wall paintings with vibrant colours and images. They're not all like that, of course, some haven't stood the test of time so well.
My favourite tomb is the oval resting place dug back into the Theban Hills of Tuthmosis III, the subject of one of the most beautiful statues in the world in the Luxor Museum. It's almost an Indiana Jones adventure to find the tomb: climb up a rickety ladder to a gap in the hillface, go through it and be faced with a bridge over a chasm and then go into the tomb itself, into the first chamber, down some steps to a second and then a third chamber... the sarcophagus. It's not the most elaborate or colourful of tombs but in some ways it's the most exciting to me, an adventure.
I'll follow this story with interest.
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