"Don't mention the war!"

Now now! Before anyone takes offence on behalf of our German friends; this is a direct quote from an episode of Fawlty Towers, which was extremely funny and which need not cause offence to anyone. The butt of the joke was Mr Fawlty himself, not the Germans or their part in the war, OK?

Nevertheless, Luxor is full of them, 1200 actually! They're here at the invitation of someone (the President? Luxor's Governor? the Chamber of Commerce? who knows?) in the hope that they will go back to Germany and aggressively sell holidays to our benighted region. Sorry, I didn't mention that they were from the German travel trade, did I.

They're certainly being royally looked after; distributed around the best hotels, treated to very special events and everywhere they go there have been council workers there before them. New extravagant lighting along the Corniche and Ibn Khaled El Walid Street, kerbstones newly painted, too many soldiers and policemen to shake a stick at and several roads closed to all traffic except their's!

Tonight, after a stroll along the Kebash Road  (the Avenue of the Sphinxes) illuminated by ancient Egyptians holding live burning torches, they enjoyed dinner in the actual Temple of Luxor, something we've never even heard of before, whilst being accompanied by a live orchestra! Even the Temple is lit differently, with different colours, most impressive!

I wasn't allowed any nearer, and me a tourist! Pity help anyone arriving on a day-trip from the Red Sea today, they had no chance!

Anyway, here are a few good and shaky small video clips, just to give you a taste, I hope.

There they are disgorging from the fleet of coaches, and promenading along the Avenue towards the Temple Pylon. I haven't seen so many coaches in the Temple coach-park for yonks!

Feeding 1200 people a slap-up dinner outdoors and away from any proper cooking facilities must have been a nightmare to organise! Here are some of the catering workers:

It was Freda who noticed the orchestra's mini-bus parked on the Corniche, I'd walked straight past it.

I couldn't get much of a shot at them (Maybe "shot" isn't quite the right word to use, seeing as security was so tight down there today.) But I did my best, as always, Dear Reader.

I know that the lighting isn't perfect, but you can see the fiddlers bows; and some of the table settings for the 1200 guests.

A few yards farther on, and we came upon the hot food buffet, from whence the waiters were obviously collecting the hot food.

Well, after all that effort (you guessed it!) a drop of tea was in order. The Winter Palace being the nearest, they got the business. No surprise there tonight, but a lovely display of flowers for the German guests:

Being sated with tea and Winter Palace cookies, I decided that I wasn't capable of much more walking, so we rang friend Badawi and took a caleche to get the little bit of shopping we needed. On the way back, we came to realise that it wasn't only the Germans who were getting the bright light treatment. How about these wedding cars?

And lastly, here's what the new illuminations on the Corniche etc look like. They're much the same as before, only more prolific. That's the Iberotel (the old Novotel) coming up on the left. That's wind noise you can hear towards the end, I had to cut quite a bit off that clip, as it became deafening!

That's all folks!