RA – 8 Days (Cairo – Nile cruise)

After breakfast, you set off to explore Cairo with a friendly Egyptologist guide who knows the city’s history in depth. On the Giza plateau you see the one wonder of the ancient world that is still standing. Three pyramids, those of Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus, dominate the site, each a remarkable structure built from giant blocks of stone. Below them the Sphinx keeps guard over the pharaohs’ realm, a figure with a lion’s body and the features of Chephren.

You then visit the Grand Egyptian Museum. Its galleries hold over 250,000 pieces of art from a span of 5,000 years, and the most celebrated display is Tutankhamen’s treasure, led by his mask of solid gold. To finish the day, you go to Cairo railway station and board the overnight sleeper bound for Aswan.

When the train reaches Aswan, someone is waiting at the station to take you to your cruise ship to board. Your first visit is the High Dam, famous worldwide as an engineering marvel, built in 1960 that provides electricity and irrigation for all of Egypt. You then cross by boat on a short ride to Agilika Island. Its Temple of Philae, built for the goddess Isis, contains various shrines and sanctuaries. Back on your Nile cruise you have lunch, and in the evening an international buffet dinner is served.

After breakfast, you visit Kom Ombo Temple, a double temple built for two gods. Its right-hand side is dedicated to Sebek, the crocodile god, and its left-hand side to Horus the Great, the sun god of war. Lunch follows on board. Later you tour Edfu Temple, the best-preserved temple of ancient times, which is consecrated to Horus. A continental buffet is served for dinner.

After breakfast, you head to the ship and go on board. Your sightseeing then focuses on the east bank of the Nile and the temples at Luxor and Karnak, linked in antiquity by a processional road flanked with ram-headed sphinxes. Together they show why Luxor is described as the biggest open-air museum on the planet and one of the great archaeological sites anywhere. You return to the cruise for lunch, and you can spend the remaining hours looking around the city and its markets.

Your time on the Nile cruise ends after breakfast. The day’s tour covers the West Bank of the Nile, starting with the Valley of the Kings, a complex of royal burial chambers used from the time of Thutmose I. You also see Hatshepsut’s temple and the two huge statues known as the Colossi of Memnon. Afterwards you are transferred to Luxor railway station for your overnight sleeper back to Cairo.

After breakfast, someone meets you at Cairo railway station as you arrive and transfers you to the hotel for check-in. Then you visit the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. This was the first museum centred on ancient Egypt, history’s earliest civilization, and it remains the only one in Egypt that surveys every historical period of the country. On display are 50,000 artifacts that follow Egyptian civilization from prehistory through to today.

The tour moves on to the Citadel of Saladin, site of the alabaster Mosque of Mohamed Ali. In Old Cairo, called the religious complex because everything is gathered in a single area that is easy to walk, you visit the Hanging Church, the Ben Ezra Synagogue, plus the most ancient mosque on the African continent, not merely in Egypt. In the late afternoon you are taken to Khan el Khalili, one of the most remarkable oriental markets, whose many shops show off a superb assortment of gold and silver jewelry.

After breakfast, you are driven to the airport for the journey home.