Alexander The Great – 10 Days (Cairo – Nile cruise & Alexandria)

After breakfast, you head out with a friendly, knowledgeable Egyptologist to see Cairo. The day opens at Giza, on the plateau that holds the one ancient wonder still surviving. Here you see the three pyramids built for Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus, great monuments made from enormous stone blocks. Watching over them is the Sphinx, the steadfast guardian of the land of the pharaohs, a lion in body with the face of Chephren.

Your next stop is the Grand Egyptian Museum, which displays more than 250,000 art objects spanning 5,000 years. Do not miss its most important collection, the treasures of Tutankhamen, and in particular his solid gold mask.

After breakfast, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization is your first stop. Opened as the first museum with ancient Egyptian civilization as its focus, the earliest in history, it is also unrivalled in Egypt for its overview of every one of the country’s historical periods. With 50,000 artifacts, it guides you from prehistoric times up to the present day.

You continue to the Citadel of Saladin and the alabaster Mosque of Mohamed Ali inside it. Old Cairo comes next, an area known as the religious complex because its church, synagogue and mosque lie within one walkable quarter. There you walk from the Hanging Church to the Ben Ezra Synagogue and on to the earliest mosque built in Africa, not only in Egypt. Toward the end of the afternoon you reach Khan el Khalili, one of the great oriental markets, where countless shops show a wonderful array of gold and silver jewelry. You are then taken to Cairo railway station, where the sleeper train to Aswan leaves. For a more comfortable trip, you can ask to replace this train journey with a domestic flight.

On arrival in Aswan, you are met at the railway station and brought aboard your cruise ship. You start with the High Dam, famous around the world as a great engineering achievement. Dating from 1960, it supplies the whole of Egypt with electricity and irrigation. A short boat ride brings you to Agilika Island, where you see the Temple of Philae, dedicated to the goddess Isis, with its various shrines and sanctuaries. Lunch is served back on the Nile cruise, and an international buffet dinner is offered in the evening.

After breakfast, the day starts at Kom Ombo, where a double temple serves two gods. On the right stands the temple of Sebek, the crocodile god, and on the left that of Horus the Great, the war god linked with the sun. After lunch back on board, you continue to Edfu Temple, which belongs to the god Horus and is better preserved than any other temple of the ancient world. In the evening a continental buffet is laid out for dinner.

After breakfast, you tour the Nile’s east bank and its two great temples, Luxor and Karnak, connected in antiquity along an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes. Together they are a strong reason why Luxor is called a vast open-air museum, the largest anywhere, and counts among the top archaeological sites in the world. Lunch is then served on board your Nile cruise, and in the free time that follows you can explore the city and its markets.

After breakfast, you leave your Nile cruise in Luxor. The tour takes you across the river to the Valley of the Kings, where a series of royal burial chambers was cut for the pharaohs, beginning with Thutmose I. Two more sites follow: the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut and the Colossi of Memnon, a pair of huge statues. Lunch is then taken back on your cruise ship, before you are transferred to Luxor railway station to catch your sleeper to Cairo. If you would like greater comfort, the train can be replaced by a domestic flight on request.

After breakfast, you are free to spend the day exploring Cairo as you like.

After breakfast, you travel to Alexandria to tour the Catacombs, the Alexandrian Library, the Graeco-Roman Museum and Kaitbay Citadel. You then head back to Cairo.

After breakfast, your airport transfer marks the end of the trip.