The Nile Dahabiya sails from Luxor to Aswan, stopping at Ramady Island, Gebel el-Silsila and Herdiab Beach as well as Karnak, Edfu, Kom Ombo and Philae.
Our representative meets you at Luxor Airport or the railway station and arranges your private transfer to the boat. After check-in and lunch on board, the guided sightseeing begins at Karnak — towering columns, sacred lakes and a run of grand sanctuaries — and continues to Luxor Temple, which was the centre of the religious festivals of ancient Thebes. Dinner on board and a quiet first evening.
Across to the West Bank after breakfast for the Valley of the Kings, then the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut carved into the cliffs at Deir el-Bahari, and a stop at the Colossi of Memnon. Back aboard, and the boat sails through the Esna Lock and on towards Edfu.
A traditional horse-drawn carriage to the Temple of Horus at Edfu. Afterwards the boat sails to Ramady Island, where the afternoon is spent in a working Nile village — the fields, the animals, and whoever is around to talk to. This is the sort of stop only a small boat can make.
Sailing to Gebel el-Silsila for the ancient quarries that supplied the stone for half the temples in Upper Egypt, and the rock-cut temple of Horemheb among them. Then Kom Ombo Temple, and the day finishes at Herdiab Beach, a clean sandbank in the middle of the river where you can swim off the boat and do nothing else at all.
Breakfast, then the Temple of Philae, built for Isis and reached by boat across the water that surrounds its island — a fitting last stop on a journey made entirely on the river.