Dendera Temple of Hathor Half Day from Luxor

Dendera sits on the edge of the desert about an hour's drive north of Luxor, and it surprises almost everyone who visits. We pick you up from your hotel and follow the Nile through farmland to the temple of Hathor, goddess of love, music and joy, built mostly in the late Ptolemaic and Roman periods.

Inside the great hypostyle hall, columns crowned with Hathor's face hold up a ceiling covered in astronomical scenes: the sky goddess Nut swallowing the sun each evening and giving birth to it each morning, in blues and golds cleaned back close to their original colours. Your guide takes you up the stairway to the rooftop chapels, where a cast of the famous circular zodiac sits in place; the original was taken to Paris in 1821 and is now in the Louvre.

Before you leave, look for the relief of Cleopatra VII and her son Caesarion on the temple's back wall, one of the few surviving images of the queen from her own time. The whole trip takes about four hours, and you're back at your hotel in time for lunch.