3 Nights Standard Nile Cruise from Aswan

We meet you at Aswan airport, the train station or your hotel — your guide will be holding a name sign — and drive straight to the High Dam, the wall of rock that changed the course of the river and created Lake Nasser behind it. From there to the granite quarries and the Unfinished Obelisk, still lying where it cracked three thousand years ago, and then by motorboat to Philae Temple on its island, moved stone by stone to higher ground when the dam was built. You board your cruise in time for lunch. The afternoon is yours on the sun deck as the boat gets ready to sail. Dinner and the first night on board, moored at Aswan.

An early start is possible today if you have added Abu Simbel — a three-hour drive south through the desert to Ramses II's temple on the shore of Lake Nasser, and back to the boat by early afternoon. If you have not, the morning is a slow one on deck with breakfast and the bank sliding past. The boat sails downstream to Kom Ombo, where the temple sits at the top of the riverbank almost at the mooring — a short walk, best done in the late afternoon light. It is the only temple in Egypt built as a double, one half for Sobek the crocodile god and one for Horus the elder, and the crocodile museum next door holds the mummified crocodiles found in the sand around it. Back on board for dinner as the boat continues towards Edfu.

Edfu after breakfast, reached the way visitors have always reached it — by horse-drawn carriage through the town to the Temple of Horus. It is the best-preserved temple in Egypt; buried in sand for centuries, which is exactly why the roof is still on and the reliefs are still sharp. Back on board, the boat passes through the Esna lock and sails on to Luxor. In the afternoon, Karnak — not one temple but a complex built and rebuilt over two thousand years, with the hypostyle hall of 134 columns at the centre of it — and then Luxor Temple, which is best at the end of the day when the light drops.

An early-morning hot-air balloon ride is available as an optional experience. Return for breakfast and complete cruise check-out. Begin the Luxor West Bank sightseeing program: Valley of the Kings, Temple of Queen Hatshepsut and the Colossi of Memnon. After the visits, transfer the customer to Luxor Airport, Luxor Train Station or a hotel in Luxor.