12 Days Metaphysical Tour to Egypt Monuments

Our representative meets you in the arrival hall of Cairo International Airport, helps with the formalities, and walks you to your private air-conditioned vehicle. Your guide joins you for the drive to your hotel near the pyramids, about an hour depending on traffic, and gives you a first outline of the journey ahead.

A welcome drink is served at check-in. The rest of the day is for rest: after a long flight, a quiet evening is the best start for a journey of this kind. No meals are included today.

Morning: Saqqara

After breakfast you drive south to Saqqara, about 45 minutes, the great burial ground of the ancient capital Memphis. The Step Pyramid of Djoser, designed by the architect Imhotep around 2650 BC, is the earliest large stone building in Egypt: six stacked layers of stone, set in a walled enclosure with courts and chapels built for the king's eternal jubilee. Imhotep was later honoured as a sage and a god of healing, and in the Late Period pilgrims came to Saqqara seeking cures at the shrines linked to his name; some modern spiritual writers see the site as a school of healing. Your guide also shows you, when they are open, the Pyramid of Teti, whose burial chamber is carved with the Pyramid Texts, the oldest religious writings in the world, and the painted tombs of the officials.

You have time to sit in the enclosure, away from the busiest paths, for meditation or quiet reflection.

Afternoon and evening

Lunch is at a local restaurant, with vegetarian dishes available. In the afternoon you return to the hotel to rest; the evening is free for reflection, a walk in the hotel garden or your journal.

Morning: the three pyramids

After breakfast you spend the morning on the Giza Plateau. The pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure were built about 4,500 years ago as the tombs of three Fourth Dynasty kings; the Great Pyramid of Khufu is the largest and the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing. Archaeology reads them as royal tombs and as machines for the king's resurrection, aligned to the stars and to the rising and setting sun. Many visitors on a spiritual journey also see them as places of energy and initiation, and your guide can talk about both readings. You stop at each pyramid, and there is time to sit quietly facing them. Going inside the Great Pyramid needs a separate ticket bought at the site; a private visit inside, outside public hours, can be requested as an optional extra and depends on permission.

Afternoon: the Sphinx

Below the plateau you visit the Great Sphinx, carved from the bedrock with the body of a lion and the head of a king, and Khafre's Valley Temple, built of huge granite blocks. Lunch follows at a local restaurant, with vegetarian and light options.

Evening

The evening is free at the hotel.

Morning: the Egyptian Museum

After breakfast you drive into central Cairo to the Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square, opened in 1902. Tutankhamun's treasures have moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum and the royal mummies to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, but the old building still holds thousands of statues, coffins and reliefs, among them the Narmer Palette, which records the unification of Egypt around 3100 BC, the statues of the Old Kingdom and the burial treasures of the kings of Tanis.

Midday: the Citadel of Saladin

The Citadel was begun by Salah ad-Din (Saladin) in 1176 to defend Cairo, and was the seat of Egypt's rulers for some 700 years. You visit the Mosque of Muhammad Ali, built in the Ottoman style between 1830 and 1848, and stand on the terrace above the minarets of the medieval city. Lunch is at a local restaurant.

Afternoon: Coptic Cairo

The day ends in Old Cairo, the Coptic quarter built around the Roman fortress of Babylon, with the Hanging Church, named for its position over the fortress gatehouse, and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, where the Cairo Geniza of medieval manuscripts was found. Christian, Jewish and, a few streets away, Muslim places of worship stand side by side here. Shoulders and knees should be covered.

Morning: flight to Aswan

After breakfast you check out and transfer to Cairo airport for the domestic flight to Aswan, about 1 hour 20 minutes. Your guide meets you on arrival and takes you to your Nile cruise ship, your home for the next three nights.

Midday: Philae

A short motorboat ride takes you to Agilkia Island and the temple of Philae, dedicated to Isis, the mother goddess who gathered the body of Osiris and gave birth to Horus. Her cult drew pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean, and Philae was one of the last places where the old religion was practised: the last known hieroglyphic inscription, from AD 394, is carved here. In the 1970s the whole temple was moved stone by stone to this island to save it from the water held between the old and new dams. There is time to sit by the water at the edge of the temple.

Afternoon and evening

Lunch is on board, followed by tea on the sun deck with the granite islands and feluccas of Aswan around you. Dinner is on board.

Morning: on the river

Breakfast is on board as the ship sails north. The river between Aswan and Kom Ombo is narrow, with palms, fields and desert close to both banks, and the morning on deck is one of the quiet moments of the trip.

Kom Ombo

Kom Ombo is a double temple of the Ptolemaic period, with two entrances and two sanctuaries side by side: one for Sobek, the crocodile god of the Nile's waters and fertility, and one for Haroeris, Horus the Elder, a falcon god. The symmetry of the plan, two cults sharing one building, is often read today as a lesson in balance. Your guide shows you the relief often interpreted as a set of medical instruments and the Nilometer that measured the river. In the Crocodile Museum next door are mummified crocodiles from a nearby cemetery.

Afternoon and evening

Lunch and afternoon tea are on board as the ship sails on towards Edfu. Many ships hold a galabiya evening, a party where guests dress in the traditional Egyptian robe, after dinner.

Morning: the Temple of Horus at Edfu

After breakfast you ride by horse carriage to the Temple of Horus at Edfu, built between 237 and 57 BC and the most complete temple in Egypt. Its walls tell the myth of Horus and his struggle with Seth, the victory of order over chaos that the Egyptians re-enacted here every year. The dark inner sanctuary still holds its granite shrine.

Midday: sailing to Luxor

Lunch is on board as the ship sails north, through the lock at Esna, towards Luxor.

Afternoon: Karnak

In Luxor you visit Karnak, the temple of Amun-Ra, built and enlarged by pharaohs over some 2,000 years and the largest religious complex of the ancient world. You walk through the Great Hypostyle Hall, with its 134 columns, to the obelisks of Thutmose I and Hatshepsut and the Sacred Lake, where the priests purified themselves before the rites.

Evening: Luxor Temple

At dusk you visit Luxor Temple, built mainly under Amenhotep III and Ramses II and lit after dark. Each year in the Opet festival the statue of Amun was carried here from Karnak along the Avenue of Sphinxes, to renew the god's union with the king. Dinner is on board, with the ship moored in Luxor.

Morning: the Valley of the Kings

After breakfast you leave the ship and cross to the West Bank. The Valley of the Kings holds more than 60 tombs cut into the hills for the pharaohs of the New Kingdom. The standard ticket opens three tombs among those open on the day; the tombs of Tutankhamun, Seti I and Ramses VI need a separate ticket bought at the site. Their painted corridors carry the Books of the Underworld, texts that guide the king through the twelve hours of the night to his rebirth with the sun at dawn.

Late morning: Hatshepsut and the Colossi of Memnon

At Deir el-Bahari, the temple of Queen Hatshepsut rises in three terraces against the cliffs. She ruled as pharaoh for about two decades, and the temple includes a chapel of Hathor and one of Anubis. On the way back you stop at the Colossi of Memnon, two seated statues of Amenhotep III about 18 metres tall, which once stood at the entrance of his mortuary temple.

Afternoon and evening

Lunch is at a local restaurant, then you check in to your hotel in Luxor for the night and rest for the rest of the day.

Morning: the temple of Hathor at Dendera

After breakfast you check out and drive north to Dendera, about 1 hour 15 minutes. The temple of Hathor, goddess of love, music and joy, was built in the last centuries BC and the first century AD and is one of the best-preserved temples in Egypt; its ceilings have been cleaned and show their blue and gold colours again. On the roof, a small chapel of Osiris holds a cast of the Dendera Zodiac (the original is in the Louvre), a round map of the sky with the signs of the zodiac. Below, narrow crypts carry fine reliefs. There is time for quiet reflection in the temple.

Afternoon: to Abydos

You drive on to Abydos, about 2 hours, one of the oldest and holiest places in Egypt. The first kings of Egypt were buried here, and from the Middle Kingdom onwards it was the centre of the cult of Osiris, god of the dead and of resurrection: Egyptians made pilgrimages here and set up memorials so as to share in his festival.

Evening: the village guesthouse

You check in to a simple local guesthouse in the village of Abydos for two nights. Lunch and dinner are included here, with home-style Egyptian food, and you have a chance to see village life up close.

Morning: the temple of Seti I

After breakfast you walk to the temple of Seti I, built around 1290 BC and finished by his son Ramses II. Its reliefs are among the finest in Egypt, cut in fine limestone with much of their colour, and the temple has seven chapels side by side for seven gods. In a corridor is the Abydos King List, which names Seti's royal ancestors back to the first king, Menes. On one lintel a well-known group of signs, changed when the inscription was re-carved, is sometimes compared to modern machines; Egyptologists read it as one royal title cut over another.

Late morning: the Osireion

Behind the temple lies the Osireion, a sunken building of massive granite pillars, often half under groundwater, built as a symbolic tomb of Osiris. Most Egyptologists date it to the reign of Seti I; some alternative writers believe it is much older. On one of its pillars is a drawing of the "Flower of Life", a geometric pattern of overlapping circles, which has become a symbol for many spiritual travelers; its date and meaning are not known. Access to the Osireion itself depends on the water level and the site's rules; it can always be seen from above.

There is time for meditation in a quiet part of the temple, as the site allows.

Afternoon and evening

Lunch is at the guesthouse. The afternoon is free: walk in the village, rest, or sit on the roof at sunset. Dinner is at the guesthouse.

Morning: back to Luxor

After a village breakfast you say goodbye to your hosts and drive to Luxor airport, about 3 hours, with a stop on the way.

Afternoon: flight to Cairo

The domestic flight to Cairo takes about 1 hour. Our representative meets you on arrival and takes you to your hotel near the airport, convenient for the flight home.

Evening

The evening is free for rest and for a last dinner at the hotel.

After breakfast, our representative helps you check out and drives you the short distance to Cairo International Airport for your international flight; airlines usually ask you to be at the airport three hours before departure. This is the end of the tour.