Four days sailing north from Aswan to Luxor: Philae and the High Dam, Kom Ombo and Edfu, then the Valley of the Kings, Karnak and Luxor Temple.
Our representative meets you at Aswan Airport or the railway station and drives you to the boat in a private air-conditioned vehicle. The sightseeing starts with the Aswan High Dam, which changed how the whole country manages its water and its farmland. Then the Temple of Philae, built for Isis and standing on Agilika Island, where it was rebuilt after the dam went up — the columns and reliefs are among the most graceful in Egypt. You check in aboard afterwards for a welcome lunch, and dinner is served as the sun goes down over the river.
Breakfast on board as the boat sails north. Kom Ombo Temple first, a rare double temple built for two gods at once — Sobek the crocodile god and Horus the falcon god — with two identical halves, each with its own entrance, halls and sanctuary, and carvings across the walls showing scenes of daily life and religion. Lunch while sailing on to Edfu, and in the afternoon the Temple of Horus, one of the best-preserved in Egypt and remarkable for how much of its structure and relief work survives.
Breakfast, then over to the West Bank. The Valley of the Kings comes first, the royal burial ground of generations of pharaohs, where you go down into tombs cut deep into the mountain and the wall paintings still carry their colour. The Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir El-Bahari follows, built into the cliffs for one of the very few women to rule Egypt outright, with carvings setting out her divine birth and her reign. The Colossi of Memnon close the tour — worn by three thousand years of weather and still enormous. Lunch back on board, and a free afternoon on the sundeck.
Breakfast on board, then disembarkation and the East Bank with your guide. Karnak Temple first, the vast complex built for Amun, Mut and Khonsu that was the centre of ancient Thebes, with its towering columns and sacred lakes. Then Luxor Temple, just south of it and once joined to it by the Avenue of Sphinxes; walking through its courtyards gives you a clearer sense of ordinary religious life than Karnak's scale allows. Afterwards a private transfer to Luxor Airport or the train station.