LUXOR, Egypt — President Sarkozy of France and his model-turned-singer girlfriend, Carla Bruni, arrived holding hands in Luxor yesterday, kicking off a private visit to Egypt. Heavy security prevented the press from approaching Mr. Sarkozy’s entourage at the airport and the couple was whisked off in a convoy of Egyptian presidential security cars to Luxor’s famed Old Winter Palace hotel on the east bank of the Nile.

Wearing sunglasses and dark casual clothes in balmy Egyptian winter weather, they turned to wave to a crowd of onlookers and journalists as they walked up to the hotel, appearing relaxed and at ease with the press attention. Security was stepped up around the hotel and at the three archaeological sites Mr. Sarkozy and Ms. Bruni were to visit — the Luxor Temple, the city’s museum and the Karnak Temple.

In Paris, France-2 television reported Ms. Bruni and Mr. Sarkozy would spend three days at the Winter Palace. French press also reported that the couple would travel to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik tomorrow.

Mr. Sarkozy is scheduled to start an official visit to Egypt on Monday, when he meets President Mubarak, the French Embassy in Cairo said. Mr. Sarkozy, 52, and Ms. Bruni, 39, first surfaced as a couple earlier this month on a visit to Disneyland Paris. Their appearance, captured by the French press, came two months after the French president’s divorce from his wife of 11 years, Cecilia.

Ms. Bruni, 39, and an Italian-born French citizen, is a longtime model who won critical and public acclaim for her first folk album in 2003.