Karnak

The East Bank of Luxor is the central part of Luxor township, centred on the twin foci of the Temple of Luxor and the Temple of Karnak. Unlike the Luxor/West Bank West Bank, which was always the main area for cemeteries and mortuary temples, the East Bank represented the main settlement of the living throughout the millennia - a role that has hardly changed. The vast majority of hotels and tourist facilities are in the East Bank. The layout of Luxor town is fairly straightforward: arranged about the temples of Karnak and Luxor (actually some 3 km (1.9 miles) apart, in the north and south of the city respectively) are four main roads with a network of many small streets between them: *the Corniche el-Nil (usually just referred to as 'the Corniche', running along the east bank of the Nile and connecting most of the major attractions *Sharia al-Mahatta, linking the railway station with the area around Luxor Temple *Sharia Karnak, running inland parallel to the Nile and the Corniche *Sharia Televizyon, in the southern part of the town, an area of inexpensive accommodationApril 2010The reconstruction of the centre of Luxor is largely complete...but now they're digging up the town centre to expose the twin rows of spinxes that lined the processional route from Karnak to Luxor temple. As a result, a large number of buildings including hotels, churches and,I believe, mosques together with many private houses have been or will be demolished. Some of the recovered sphinxes are in good condition for their age although many are just fragments which are being fitted into cement replicas.Completed major works include widening the main road along the corniche allowing the coaches from the Red Sea resorts to quickly access Karnak temple & the Valley of the Kings.