Meroe, the largest Nour El Nil dahabiya, sails six days from Esna to Aswan, stopping at the Temple of Khnum, El Kab, Gebel Silsileh and Kom Ombo.
You board at Esna, around 33 miles south of Luxor, and meet the crew. The town is a working market town, and the walk to the Temple of Khnum goes through it — textiles, produce, the ordinary business of the place. The temple itself sits 9 metres below the modern street level, which is why so much of its carving survives. The boat moors along the bank for the first night.
Sailing to El Kab, the old capital of Upper Egypt, where the Temple of Nekhbet stands and tombs are cut into the mountainside above. You walk up through a fishing village to reach them. In the afternoon, Edfu, and a horse-drawn carriage through the streets to the Temple of Horus, among the best-preserved in the country. The boat then moves on to a quiet island for the night.
A day on the water, spent mostly on the sundeck. An optional walk before breakfast, then a stop at a quiet island for a swim or a stroll. Towards sunset there is a walk into a desert valley where the boulders are covered in prehistoric rock art and hieroglyphs — this was the start of the 28-day trail to Libya. The night is spent moored beside the lit Gebel Silsileh Temple.
You wake at the narrowest point of the Nile, between two ranges of hills. The Temple of Horemheb here is rarely visited, and the sandstone quarries around it supplied the stone for many of Egypt's greatest temples. Afterwards the boat sails on south and ties up at a good stretch of bank for lunch, an afternoon and another swim.
On to Kom Ombo, set on a bend of the river. The double temple is built for Sobek the crocodile god and Haroeris together, and the Crocodile Museum beside it holds a remarkable number of mummified crocodiles taken from the waters below. The boat sails towards Aswan in the afternoon for the last night.
The last approach into Aswan, with desert coming right down to both banks. Breakfast on board, then you disembark and are transferred wherever you need to go.