Three nights sailing north from Aswan to Luxor, visiting Philae, Kom Ombo, Edfu, the Valley of the Kings, Karnak and Luxor Temple, with full board.
Our representative meets you at Aswan Airport or the railway station and drives you to the boat in a private air-conditioned vehicle. Sightseeing starts before you board: the Aswan High Dam first, which reshaped Egyptian farming and water management in a single decade, and then the Temple of Philae, built for Isis and standing on Agilika Island, where it was rebuilt after the dam went up. Check in for a welcome lunch, then dinner as the light goes off the river.
Breakfast on board while sailing north. Kom Ombo Temple is unusual even by Egyptian standards: a double temple for Sobek the crocodile god and Horus the falcon god, with two identical halves, each with its own entrance, halls and sanctuary, and carvings of daily life and religion across the walls. Lunch while sailing on, and in the afternoon the Temple of Horus at Edfu, one of the best-preserved anywhere, remarkable for how much of its structure and relief work is still standing.
Across to the West Bank after breakfast. The Valley of the Kings is the royal burial ground of generations of pharaohs, and you go down inside the tombs themselves, where the painted walls still carry their colour. Then the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir El-Bahari, built into the cliffs for one of the few women who ruled Egypt outright, with reliefs setting out her divine birth and reign. The Colossi of Memnon close the morning. Lunch back on board and a free afternoon on the sundeck.
Breakfast, disembarkation, then the East Bank. Karnak Temple was the centre of ancient Thebes and was built for Amun, Mut and Khonsu, with towering columns, sacred lakes and carving on every surface. Luxor Temple lies just south of it and was once joined to it by the Avenue of Sphinxes; walking its courtyards gives a clearer sense of ordinary religious life than Karnak's scale allows. Afterwards a private transfer to Luxor Airport or the train station.