Karnak is the one to take slowly. It is not a building, it is a city of them, added onto by pharaohs for two thousand years, and the hypostyle hall with its 134 columns is the single most overwhelming room in Egypt. Go at opening time. By mid-morning the coach groups arrive and the scale you came for gets crowded out.

Luxor Temple, its smaller sibling in the middle of town, plays a different trick: visit after dark, when it is lit from below and half empty, and you will have the avenue of sphinxes almost to yourself. If you must choose one dawn and one evening in Luxor, that is the split.

Save the Valley of the Kings for the next morning; tomb tickets are sold in bundles and the painted tombs are worth the add-on fee every single time.