12 Days Egypt Christmas Nile Tour

Our representative meets you in the arrival hall of Cairo International Airport, helps with your luggage and walks you to your private air-conditioned vehicle. The drive to the hotel takes 30 to 60 minutes, depending on traffic and on where your hotel is.

At check-in your tour leader goes through the plan with you: tomorrow's pick-up, the flight to Luxor on Day 3, and where you will be on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve on your dates.

Good to know

Dinner is included tonight at the hotel. Keep the evening light: Day 2 starts after breakfast.

Morning: the Egyptian Museum

After breakfast your guide meets you at the hotel and you drive to Tahrir Square. The Egyptian Museum has held the national collection since 1902: royal statues from the age of the pyramids, painted coffins, jewellery, papyri and the objects of daily life that explain the rest of the trip. The Tutankhamun treasures have moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, so your guide spends the visit on the collections that remain here.

Afternoon: the Giza Plateau

Lunch is at a local restaurant on the way. The three pyramids of Giza were built for the Fourth Dynasty kings Khufu (Cheops), Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaure (Mycerinus) about 4,500 years ago. The Great Pyramid is the largest and the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing; Khafre's pyramid still has some of its casing stones at the top; Menkaure's is the smallest of the three. On this tour a short camel ride on the plateau is included. Going inside the Great Pyramid needs a separate ticket bought at the site.

The visit ends at the Great Sphinx, carved from the bedrock of the plateau with a lion's body and a king's head, and the Valley Temple of Khafre beside it.

Evening: Sound and Light at the pyramids

After a rest at the hotel, you return to Giza for the Sound and Light show, also included on this tour: the pyramids and the Sphinx are lit while a narration tells their story. Dinner afterwards is your choice; your guide can suggest a restaurant nearby.

Morning: flight to Luxor

After an early breakfast you transfer to Cairo airport for the domestic flight to Luxor, about one hour. Your guide meets you on arrival.

Late morning: Karnak

Karnak, the temple of the god Amun, was built and enlarged over some 2,000 years and covers more ground than any other temple in Egypt. The Great Hypostyle Hall has 134 papyrus-shaped columns, the tallest about 21 metres high, and the obelisks of Thutmose I and Hatshepsut still stand at the heart of the temple.

Midday: Luxor Temple

Luxor Temple, built mainly under Amenhotep III and Ramses II, stands in the centre of the modern town. One of the two obelisks at its entrance remains; the other has stood in the Place de la Concorde in Paris since 1836. Once a year in ancient times, the statue of Amun was carried here from Karnak in the Opet festival, along the Avenue of Sphinxes that still links the two temples.

Afternoon and evening on board

You board your Nile cruise ship in time for lunch, and the afternoon is free on the sun deck. Dinner is on board, with the ship moored in Luxor. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are included today.

Sunrise: optional balloon flight

Before breakfast you can take a hot-air balloon flight over the West Bank, at extra cost. Flights last about 45 minutes, depend on the wind, and show the Valley of the Kings, the temples and the green fields from above. Read whether the balloon is worth it.

Morning: the Valley of the Kings

The Valley of the Kings holds more than 60 tombs cut into the hills for the pharaohs of the New Kingdom, among them Ramses II and Tutankhamun. 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. Inside, the painted corridors show the king's journey through the underworld.

Late morning: the Colossi of Memnon and Hatshepsut

The Colossi of Memnon are two seated statues of Amenhotep III, each about 18 metres tall, that stood at the gate of his mortuary temple. 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 reliefs record her expedition to the land of Punt.

Afternoon and evening

Lunch is back on board and the ship sails south towards Esna and Edfu, passing through the Esna lock on the way. Dinner is on board.

Morning: the Temple of Horus at Edfu

After breakfast, a horse carriage takes you from the river to the Temple of Horus, built between 237 and 57 BC and the most complete temple in Egypt: its pylon, roofed halls and granite shrine still stand much as they were built. The walls tell the story of the battle between Horus and his uncle Seth, which your guide reads with you.

Afternoon: sailing to Kom Ombo

Lunch is on board as the ship sails south between fields, palm groves and villages, with tea on the sun deck in the afternoon. In the late afternoon the ship moors at Kom Ombo, a double temple from the Ptolemaic period with two sanctuaries side by side, one for Sobek, the crocodile god, and one for Haroeris, Horus the Elder. Your guide points out a relief often read as a set of medical instruments and the temple's Nilometer; the small Crocodile Museum next door shows mummified crocodiles.

Evening

Dinner is on board, moored at Kom Ombo. If you started on 20 December, tonight is Christmas Eve.

Morning: the sites of Aswan

The ship reaches Aswan early. After breakfast you visit:

• Philae Temple, dedicated to the goddess Isis and reached by motorboat. It was moved stone by stone to Agilkia Island in a UNESCO campaign in the 1970s to save it from the water between the two dams; early Christians later carved crosses into some of its walls.
• The Unfinished Obelisk in the ancient granite quarries. Had it been finished it would have stood about 42 metres tall; a crack in the stone stopped the work and left the quarrying methods in view.
• The High Dam, completed in 1970, nearly 4 km long and 111 metres high, which ended the yearly Nile flood and created Lake Nasser.

Afternoon and evening

Lunch is on board, and the afternoon is free. A felucca ride around Elephantine Island at sunset is a good optional extra. Dinner is on board, moored in Aswan. Tonight is your last night on the ship; ask the hotel desk on board for a breakfast box, as tomorrow starts before dawn.

Early morning: the road to Abu Simbel

You check out of the ship in the dark, usually around 4 am, for the drive south through the desert, about 280 km and three and a half hours.

Morning: the temples of Abu Simbel

Ramses II had two temples cut into the sandstone cliff above the Nile around 1260 BC. The four seated colossi of the king on the Great Temple are each about 20 metres tall, and the sanctuary inside is reached by the rising sun around 22 February and 22 October. The smaller temple is dedicated to Hathor and to Queen Nefertari, shown at the same size as the king. In the 1960s both temples were cut into blocks and rebuilt 65 metres higher, above the waters of Lake Nasser. More in our Abu Simbel guide.

Afternoon: flight to Cairo

You drive back to Aswan airport for the flight to Cairo, about 1 hour 20 minutes. Our representative meets you on arrival and drives you to your hotel. Breakfast is included today.

Morning: the drive north

After breakfast you check out and drive about three hours on the desert road to Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC and the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt.

The library and the citadel

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, opened in 2002 near the site of the ancient Library of Alexandria, has a vast terraced reading room under a tilted disc of a roof, and an outer wall carved with letters from scripts around the world. On the tip of the Eastern Harbour, Sultan Qaitbay built his citadel in the 1470s on the site of the Pharos, the ancient Lighthouse and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Mosque, memorials and the cathedral

• The Mosque of Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi, rebuilt in the 1940s over the tomb of a 13th-century Sufi saint from Murcia in Spain.
• The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Manshiyya Square, and the statue of Alexander the Great, the city's founder.
• St Mark's Cathedral, the seat of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, which by tradition stands where St Mark founded the city's first church in the 1st century.

Afternoon: Montaza and the Corniche

After a break for lunch at your own cost, you drive along the Corniche, the long sea front around the bay, to the gardens of Montaza at its eastern end, the former royal estate where the Haramlik palace and the Salamlek stand among palm trees and lawns. The day ends at Stanley Bridge for the late afternoon light over the sea.

Evening

You spend the night at your hotel in Alexandria. Breakfast is included today. If you are on the route on 31 December, Alexandria's hotels hold New Year's Eve dinners; ask us about a booking.

After breakfast the day is yours. A few ideas, all at your own pace and cost:

• A walk along the Corniche and coffee in one of the old cafés of the city centre, some of them open since the early 20th century.
• Fresh fish in a seafood restaurant by the harbour, where you choose the fish and the way it is cooked.
• Sites you did not see yesterday, such as the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa, Pompey's Pillar or the Alexandria National Museum, with a car and guide that we can arrange.
• A slow return to the library, if you would like to see its exhibitions properly.

Our guide to a day in Alexandria has more ideas. You spend a second night at your hotel in Alexandria. Breakfast is included.

Morning: the drive back

After breakfast you check out and drive about three hours back to Cairo.

The Citadel of Saladin and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali

Saladin began the Citadel in 1176 on a spur of the Muqattam hills, and it was the seat of Egypt's rulers for some 700 years. On top of it stands the Mosque of Muhammad Ali, built between 1830 and 1848 in the Ottoman style, with its domes and two slender minarets, and its walls cased in alabaster. From the terrace the whole of Cairo spreads below you.

Lunch is at a local restaurant.

Afternoon: Coptic Cairo

Old Cairo grew around the Roman fortress of Babylon. You visit:

• The Hanging Church, named for its position over the fortress gatehouse.
• The Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Abu Serga), over the crypt where, by tradition, the Holy Family rested on their flight into Egypt.
• The Church of St Barbara, one of the oldest churches of the quarter.
• The Ben Ezra Synagogue, where the Cairo Geniza, a store of medieval Jewish manuscripts, was found in the 19th century.

Evening

You are back at your Cairo hotel in the late afternoon. Breakfast and lunch are included today.

After breakfast the day is free. If you would like one more day of sightseeing, the most rewarding option is the pyramid fields south of Cairo, at extra cost with a car and guide:

• Saqqara, with the Step Pyramid of Djoser, designed by Imhotep around 2650 BC, the earliest large stone building in Egypt.
• Memphis, the old capital, with the colossal statue of Ramses II.
• Dahshur, where Sneferu built the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid, the first true smooth-sided pyramid, about 4,600 years ago.

Other good uses of the day are the Grand Egyptian Museum and its Tutankhamun galleries, Khan el-Khalili and the old streets of Islamic Cairo, or simply rest and packing. If your dates include 6 January, Coptic Christmas Eve, ask us about attending a service. Breakfast and lunch are included; dinner is your choice.

After breakfast our representative drives you to Cairo International Airport in time for your international flight; airlines usually ask you to be at the airport three hours before departure. This is the end of the tour.