The MS Acamar, named Best Boat on the Nile in 2004, sails between Luxor and Aswan on 4, 5 and 8-day itineraries, visiting Karnak, Edfu, Kom Ombo and Philae.
You board before lunch and eat on board once you have settled in. Then out with your Egyptologist to the Karnak Temple Complex — the Avenue of Sphinxes, the columns, and the sanctuaries built for Amun-Ra over the better part of two thousand years. Luxor Temple follows in the afternoon light, and it is unusual in having Pharaonic, Greco-Roman, Christian and Islamic building all standing on the same site. Tea on the sundeck, then dinner.
The Valley of the Kings in the morning, going down into three royal tombs whose walls are covered in scenes of the afterlife. Then the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, terraced into the cliffs at Deir el-Bahari, and a stop at the Colossi of Memnon. Lunch on board as the Acamar sets off for Esna, passing through the lock, and dinner while sailing on towards Edfu.
Optional: A hot-air balloon over Luxor at sunrise, for the view across the whole of Thebes
Off the boat at Edfu after breakfast and up to the Temple of Horus by carriage — the best-preserved temple in Egypt, with its reliefs and inner chambers intact. Lunch on board while sailing to Kom Ombo, whose temple is laid out in perfect symmetry so that Sobek and Horus the Elder each have their own half. The Crocodile Mummification Museum is a few steps away and worth the detour.
The Aswan High Dam first, then the Temple of Philae, built for Isis and moved island by island by UNESCO when the water rose behind the dam. The last stop is the Unfinished Obelisk, a colossal piece of granite still lying in the old quarries, which is the clearest lesson available in how the ancient stonecutters actually worked. Lunch on board and a free afternoon, or a felucca.
Optional: A visit to a Nubian village, which has its own language, music and architecture
Breakfast, then you leave the MS Acamar at Aswan.
Optional: An excursion to the Abu Simbel Temples, where Ramses II and Queen Nefertari's temples are cut into the mountainside and aligned to face the rising sun. Saved from the water by UNESCO. Transfers by car or by flight, at extra cost