Morning
Land at Cairo (CAI)
Terminal 3 for most long-haul arrivals. Buy the visa-on-arrival sticker at the bank window before you reach passport control.
Transfer across to Giza
Airport to the pyramids is about 40 km through the city — allow an hour, and two in afternoon traffic.
Afternoon / Day
Check in: Marriott Mena House
6 Pyramids Road. Ask for a pyramid-view room — the Great Pyramid is straight across the lawn, and the rooms facing the other way are the same price.
Cairo Tower for the lay of the land
Gezira Island, Zamalek. The lotus-shaped tower gives you the whole city and the bend of the Nile in one look.
Evening
Dinner at Abou El Sid
157 26th of July St, Zamalek. Dark, lamp-hung Egyptian dining room — order the molokhia, the stuffed pigeon and a hibiscus.
Morning
Great Pyramid of Khufu
Al Haram, Giza. Going inside is a separate ticket and a stooped climb up a hot granite passage to an empty chamber.
The Sphinx and the Valley Temple
Enter from the Sphinx gate below the plateau. Khafre's Valley Temple beside it is bare granite and the best-preserved thing here.
Afternoon / Day
Lunch at 9 Pyramids Lounge
Panorama Point, inside the archaeological site. The sit-down option on the plateau itself, and all nine pyramids line up from the terrace.
Grand Egyptian Museum: Tutankhamun
Kafr Nassar, 2 km from the plateau. All 5,398 objects from the tomb are here in two halls — the first time the whole find has been shown together.
GEM: Grand Staircase and the boats
Same ticket. Twelve chronological galleries, the Ramesses II colossus in the atrium, and Khufu's cedar boats in their own hall.
Evening
Dinner back at Mena House
The garden restaurant looks straight at the floodlit Great Pyramid. Easy after a long day on the plateau.
Morning
Egyptian Museum, Tahrir Square
Meret Basha St. Tutankhamun and the Khafre statue have gone to Giza and the royal mummies to Fustat; the Narmer Palette, Yuya and Thuya and the Tanis gold stay here.
Afternoon / Day
Lunch at Felfela
15 Hoda Shaarawy St, Bab al-Louq, five minutes from Tahrir. Downtown institution — foul, taameya and fresh-squeezed juice.
National Museum of Egyptian Civilization
El-Fustat Road, Ain El Sira. The Royal Mummies Hall downstairs holds the kings and queens paraded across the city from Tahrir in April 2021.
Citadel and the Alabaster Mosque
Salah Salem St. Muhammad Ali's Ottoman mosque sits on the high ground; on a clear day you see the pyramids from the terrace.
Evening
Al-Muizz Street after dark
El-Gamaleya. The medieval spine of Fatimid Cairo, pedestrianised and floodlit — minarets and sabil-kuttabs the whole length.
Khan el-Khalili
El-Gamaleya. Founded in 1382 and still working — head for the coppersmiths and the perfume-oil lanes off the tourist run.
Mint tea at El Fishawy
In the alley behind the Al-Hussein mosque. Trading since the 18th century and open around the clock; Naguib Mahfouz wrote here.
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Morning
Fly Cairo to Luxor
EgyptAir runs CAI-LXR in about an hour, several times a day. The alternative is the overnight sleeper from Giza station.
Check in: Hilton Luxor Resort & Spa
New Karnak, on the east bank north of the temple. Nile-facing rooms and a pool you will want after the tombs.
Afternoon / Day
Lunch at Sofra
90 Mohamed Farid St, a few streets back from the corniche. A 1930s house done up in mashrabiya; the mixed mezze is the order.
Karnak Temple
Karnak, 3 km north of town. Give the Hypostyle Hall an hour on its own — 134 columns, some of them twenty metres tall.
Evening
Luxor Temple after dark
Corniche al-Nil, in the middle of town. It stays open late and the floodlighting is the reason to come at night rather than noon.
Dinner at Al-Sahaby Lane
Souk St, a lane off the market. Rooftop tables over the old town; tagine cooked in the clay pot and Egyptian wine.
Morning
Sunrise balloon over the West Bank
Launches from the fields behind the Colossi at first light. Weather-dependent and always the first thing cancelled in wind.
Valley of the Kings
West Bank, Luxor. The base ticket covers any three open tombs; Seti I and Tutankhamun are extra — and Tutankhamun's mummy is still lying in his own tomb.
Temple of Hatshepsut
Deir el-Bahari, under the cliff. Three terraces cut into the rock face; go early, there is no shade anywhere on it.
Afternoon / Day
Medinet Habu
West Bank, south end. Ramesses III's mortuary temple keeps more original paint than anything else in Luxor, and is usually near-empty.
Colossi of Memnon
Beside the West Bank road — a ten-minute stop. Two seated Amenhotep III statues, all that is left standing of his temple.
Board the Nile cruiser at Luxor
The Oberoi Philae sails between Luxor and Aswan; its departures run Tuesdays and Saturdays, so the boarding day is fixed.
Evening
Through the Esna lock
About 55 km upstream the boat queues for the single lock at Esna. Sit on deck — hawkers throw galabeyas up from rowing boats.
Morning
Caleche from the Edfu dock
Horse carriages run the 3 km from the mooring into town. Agree the fare both ways before you get in.
Temple of Horus, Edfu
Edfu. Ptolemaic, buried in sand until the 1860s and so the most complete temple in Egypt — the roof and the pylon are both intact.
Afternoon / Day
Lunch on deck while she sails
The 60 km between Edfu and Kom Ombo is the prettiest stretch of the river — sugarcane, egrets and water buffalo on both banks.
Temple of Kom Ombo
Kom Ombo, right on the riverbank. A double temple, mirrored down the middle: Sobek the crocodile on one side, Haroeris on the other.
Crocodile Museum
In the temple compound at Kom Ombo. Mummified crocodiles found in the local necropolis, laid out by size. Twenty minutes.
Evening
Sunset on the sun deck
The best hour of the cruise. West bank desert on your right, palms on the left, and nothing to do but watch it go past.
Morning
Sail into Aswan
The river narrows and the granite starts. Boats moor along the corniche opposite Elephantine Island.
Philae Temple on Agilkia Island
Reached by motorboat from Marina dock. UNESCO cut the temple into 40,000 blocks and rebuilt it here when the dam drowned Philae Island.
Afternoon / Day
Felucca round Elephantine
Hire a felucca off the corniche for a couple of hours. There is no engine, so go when there is a breeze — usually late afternoon.
Kitchener's Island botanical garden
Aswan Botanical Garden. Lord Kitchener planted it with subtropical species in the 1890s; the felucca will drop you and wait.
Gharb Soheil Nubian village
West bank, upstream of the cataract. Painted blue-and-ochre houses; go for the walk and the hibiscus, not the tame crocodiles.
Evening
Dinner at Nubian House
Above the corniche on the way to the Nubia Museum. Terrace over the first cataract; come before sunset for the view, then eat.
Morning
Disembark at Aswan
Bags off after breakfast. Hotels are five minutes from the mooring, so the changeover costs you no sightseeing time.
Unfinished Obelisk
In the northern granite quarries. Still attached to the bedrock — it cracked before it could be cut free, and would have been the largest ever raised.
Aswan High Dam
13 km south of town. Finished in 1970; it created Lake Nasser and is the reason Philae and Abu Simbel had to be moved at all.
Afternoon / Day
Check in: Old Cataract Aswan
Sharia Abtal el-Tahrir, on the granite above the river. Mandarin Oriental took the landmark over from Sofitel in 2026 and has been renovating it wing by wing — check which wing your room is in when you book.
Lunch on the terrace
The hotel terrace looks over Elephantine to the desert; Agatha Christie set part of Death on the Nile in this building.
Nubia Museum
Sharia al-Fanadek, a short walk uphill. Tells the salvage-archaeology story: what was rescued from Lake Nasser, and what was lost.
Evening
Pack for a 4 AM start
Abu Simbel means leaving Aswan in the dark. Book the car tonight and ask the desk for a breakfast box and water.
Morning
Drive to Abu Simbel
About 280 km of empty desert road, three and a half hours each way. Leaving at four gets you there before the coaches and the heat.
Great Temple of Ramesses II
Abu Simbel, on Lake Nasser. Sawn into more than a thousand blocks and lifted 65 m up the cliff between 1964 and 1968.
Temple of Nefertari
The smaller temple beside it, for Hathor and Nefertari. Twice a year, on 22 February and 22 October, the sun reaches the Great Temple sanctuary.
Afternoon / Day
Drive back to Aswan
Same road in reverse, and hotter. Most cars are back in Aswan by mid-afternoon.
Afternoon off by the pool
You have been up since three. The hotel gardens run down to the river and nothing here needs doing.
Evening
Dinner in the 1902 dining room
The domed Moorish hall added to the Old Cataract in 1902. The dress code is smarter than anywhere else on this trip.
Last Morning on the Nile
Morning
Breakfast over Elephantine
Take it on the terrace. The feluccas start working the cataract at about eight and it is the best hour of the Aswan day.
Monastery of Saint Simeon
West bank, above the sand. Boat across, then twenty minutes on foot or by camel; a 7th-century desert fortress-monastery, roofless now.
Afternoon / Day
Aswan souq
Sharia as-Souq, one street back from the corniche. Karkade, whole spices and Nubian baskets — cheaper and calmer than Khan el-Khalili.
Last lunch by the Nile
Eat early — Aswan airport is 25 minutes out of town and the check-in queue is slower than the flight deserves.
Evening
Fly Aswan to Cairo
EgyptAir flies ASW-CAI in about eighty minutes. Leave a long connection if you are carrying on the same night.
