12 Days Cairo & Dahabiya Nile Cruise Luxury tour

Your guide meets you at Cairo International Airport, helps with the visa and formalities and walks you to your private air-conditioned vehicle. The drive to your hotel by the Nile takes 30 to 60 minutes, depending on traffic.

At the hotel your guide goes through the itinerary and confirms the pick-up times. A welcome drink is served at check-in, and the evening is free.

Morning: Memphis and Saqqara

After breakfast you drive south to Memphis, capital of Egypt for much of the Old Kingdom and, by tradition, founded by King Menes. Its open-air museum keeps a colossal limestone statue of Ramses II lying on its back and the Alabaster Sphinx. A few minutes away, at Saqqara, the Step Pyramid of Djoser, designed by the architect Imhotep around 2650 BC, is the earliest large stone building in Egypt and the model the later pyramids grew from.

Afternoon: the Pyramids of Giza

After lunch at a local restaurant you drive to Giza. The pyramids of Khufu (Cheops), Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaure (Mycerinus) were built about 4,500 years ago; the Great Pyramid is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing. You see the Great Sphinx and the Valley Temple of Khafre, where the king's funeral rites began.

Evening

You return to your hotel; the evening is free.

Morning: the Egyptian Museum

The Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square, opened in 1902, still holds tens of thousands of objects, from the Narmer Palette and Old Kingdom statues to coffins, jewellery and papyri. Tutankhamun's treasures have moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum, so your guide plans a route through the highlights that remain.

Late morning: the Citadel and the Mohamed Ali Mosque

The Citadel was begun by Saladin in 1176 to defend Cairo and was the seat of Egypt's rulers for some 700 years. Inside, the Mosque of Mohamed Ali, built in the Ottoman style and clad in alabaster, looks out over the city.

Afternoon: Khan el-Khalili and Old Cairo

After lunch you walk through Khan el-Khalili, a market since the 14th century. Then you visit Old Cairo, built around the Roman fortress of Babylon: the Hanging Church above the old gatehouse, the Church of Saint Barbara, the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Abu Serga), which by tradition stands over a place where the Holy Family rested, and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, where the Cairo Geniza manuscripts were found.

Morning: flight to Luxor and boarding

After breakfast you check out and fly to Luxor, about one hour. Your guide meets you on arrival and takes you to the dahabiya, where the crew welcomes you aboard. Lunch is served on deck.

Afternoon: Karnak

Karnak, the temple of Amun, was enlarged by pharaoh after pharaoh over some 2,000 years and is the largest temple complex in Egypt. You walk through the Great Hypostyle Hall, with its 134 columns, and see the obelisks of Thutmose I and Hatshepsut and the sacred lake.

Late afternoon: Luxor Temple

Luxor Temple, built mainly in the 18th and 19th Dynasties under Amenhotep III and Ramses II, stands in the centre of the town. Its seated statues of Ramses II and its single obelisk glow in the light at sunset.

Evening

Dinner is on board, and you spend your first night on the dahabiya in Luxor.

Early morning: the Valley of the Kings

After breakfast you cross to the West Bank. In the Valley of the Kings more than 60 tombs were cut for the pharaohs of the New Kingdom; you ride the small electric train from the visitor centre to the tombs and enter three of those open on the day. The tomb of Tutankhamun, found by Howard Carter in 1922, needs a separate ticket.

Late morning: the Valley of the Queens and the Colossi

The Valley of the Queens holds the tombs of royal wives and princes of the 19th and 20th Dynasties, with brightly painted walls; the tomb of Nefertari has a separate ticket. On the way you stop at the Colossi of Memnon, two statues of Amenhotep III about 18 metres tall.

Midday: Medinet Habu

Medinet Habu, the mortuary temple of Ramses III, keeps some of the best-preserved reliefs in Egypt, including his battles against the Sea Peoples, with colour still on the ceilings.

Afternoon and evening

Back on board, the dahabiya sets off south towards Esna. Dinner is on deck, and you moor for the night at a quiet place on the bank.

A day with no fixed visits. After breakfast the boat continues south, passing through the lock at Esna and on past palm groves, sugar cane fields and villages where farmers work the land and children wave from the bank. When the north wind is with you the crew raises the sails; when it drops, a small tug keeps the boat moving.

The day is for reading, watching the river and conversation over tea on deck. Lunch is prepared on board with fresh local produce. In the evening the boat moors by an island, and dinner may be served on the bank under the stars, depending on the boat and the weather.

Morning: sailing to Edfu

After breakfast you sail on to Edfu, watching the fishermen in their small boats along the way.

Midday: the Temple of Horus

A horse carriage takes you from the river to the Temple of Horus, built between 237 and 57 BC and the best-preserved temple in Egypt. The great pylon, guarded by granite falcons, the colonnaded courtyard, the roofed halls and the shrine still stand much as they were built, and the walls tell the battle of Horus and Seth.

Afternoon and evening

Lunch is on board as the boat sails on. You watch the sunset from the deck, and dinner is served as the boat moors for the night.

Morning: sailing south

Breakfast is on deck as the boat continues through the farmland of Upper Egypt, where the desert hills close in on the river.

Afternoon: the temple of Kom Ombo

Kom Ombo stands on a bend of the river. It is a double temple from the Ptolemaic period, with two entrances and two sanctuaries side by side: one for Sobek, the crocodile god, and one for Haroeris, Horus the Elder. Your guide points out the relief often read as a set of surgical instruments and the Nilometer. Next to the temple, the Crocodile Museum shows mummified crocodiles found nearby.

Evening

Lunch and dinner are on board, and you moor for the night near Kom Ombo.

Another day with no fixed visits, as the boat sails the last stretch towards Aswan. The landscape changes: the valley narrows, the golden dunes of the Western Desert come down to the water and the first granite rocks appear.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are on board. In the afternoon tea is served on deck as the sun sets, and the boat moors for the night not far from Aswan.

Morning: into Aswan

After breakfast the boat sails into Aswan, past the granite islands of the first cataract and the feluccas of the town.

Afternoon: Philae Temple

A motorboat takes you to Agilkia Island and the Temple of Isis at Philae. When the old Aswan dam left the temple under water for most of the year, it was dismantled and rebuilt on higher ground between 1972 and 1980, in a UNESCO campaign. The colonnades, the birth house and the Kiosk of Trajan stand around the island's edge.

Evening

Dinner is on board for your last night on the dahabiya, moored in Aswan.

Morning: the High Dam

After breakfast you disembark and drive to the High Dam, 13 km south of the town. Completed in 1970, it ended the yearly flood, supplies water and electricity to the country and created Lake Nasser, which stretches about 500 km to the south. From the top you see the lake on one side and the Nile on the other.

Midday

Lunch is at a restaurant with a view over the Nile in Aswan.

Afternoon: flight to Cairo

You transfer to Aswan airport for the flight to Cairo, about 1 hour 20 minutes. A driver meets you and takes you to your hotel. The evening is free for a last dinner in Cairo.

After breakfast and check-out, your tour manager helps with your luggage and documents, and a driver takes you to Cairo International Airport in time for your flight; airlines usually ask you to be there three hours before departure. This is the end of the tour.

If your flight is late, the Grand Egyptian Museum with its Tutankhamun galleries can be added as an optional visit.