TIMELESS EGYPT, TAILORED IN LUXURY

Meet & assist at Cairo airport and escorted to hotel.
Overnight : Four Seasons Hotel Cairo At The First Residence

Visit to the Pyramids, Sphinx and the Grand Egyptian Museum.

See the 4,500 year old Pyramids on the Giza Plateau, the Grand Pyramid being the only survivor of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World", as well as the legendary Sphinx acting as the guardian of the Pharaoh's enormous funerary monument in the Valley Temple nearby. Explore the Sphinx and the many other legends surrounding this timeless regal figure.

Lunch at a local restaurant in Giza.

Optional Camel Ride and entry to Cheops Pyramid (extra cost)

Visit to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) complex, a cultural hub that includes one of the largest museums in the world, displaying the diverse heritage of a single civilisation. The museum contains over 100,000 artefacts reflecting Egypt's past from prehistory up to the Greek and Roman periods.

See the exhibit of the boy-King Tutankhamun which houses over 5,000 artifacts recovered from his tomb, including his gold mask.

As you enter the museum, you will be amazed by the colossal statue of King Ramses II and the 87 huge royal artefacts exhibited at the grand staircase leading up to an impressive 28-meter-high glass facade overlooking the pyramids of Giza.

Meals: Breakfast at hotel, lunch at a local restaurant in Giza
Overnight : Four Seasons Hotel Cairo At The First Residence

Spend the morning getting ready for your thrilling journey on the Nile River. You will be driven to Cairo Airport for your flight to Aswan (flight not included in the package price).

Then you will be driven from Aswan Airport to Dahabeya. You will embark before lunch and enjoy lunch aboard the Dahabeya, followed by a reception to welcome you on the boat in the afternoon, and dinner on board.

Overnight: Gaia Dahabiya
Meals: Breakfast at the Cairo Hotel, Lunch and Dinner on board the Dahabeya

Breakfast on board.

Morning visits to the Aswan High Dam, Egypt's most notable example of a modern engineering feat. Its construction in the 1960s was somewhat controversial due to the loss of Nubian villages and temples which now lie under Lake Nasser, the world's largest artificial lake. The electricity generated by the dam supplies the whole of Egypt.

Take a short motorboat ride to visit Philae Temple, which was relocated with the help of UNESCO to its current location on Agilkia Island to save it from the rising waters caused by the construction of the Aswad High Dam. Philae was built in honour of Isis, one of the great mother goddesses of Ancient Egypt.

You will also see the Unfinished Obelisk in the Granite Quarries which supplied the ancient Egyptians with most of the hard stone used in the pyramids and temples. A flaw discovered in the stone halted work in ancient times, leaving the enormous unfinished obelisk, which measures almost 42 meters in length, incomplete.

Overnight: Gaia Dahabiya
Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner on board the Dahabeya

Breakfast on board.

Your morning starts with a drive from Aswan to Kom Ombo to visit the temple dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek. The river stands at a bend in the Nile where sacred crocodiles basked in the sun on the riverbank in ancient times. You will see mummified crocodiles in the chapel of Hathor temple.

You will have lunch on board as you sail.

In the afternoon, visit Gebel El Silsila, a vast ancient sandstone quarry on the Nile between Edfu and Kom Ombo that supplied the stone for many of Egypt's great New Kingdom temples. Explore the rock-cut shrines, weathered inscriptions, and stelae left behind by generations of workers, set against sweeping views of the river and surrounding desert.

Dinner on board.

Overnight: Gaia Dahabiya
Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner on board the Dahabeya

Breakfast on board.

Explore, Edfu Temple, the largest and most completely preserved Pharaonic temple in Egypt. This Greek-built Temple of Horus, Ancient Egypt's falcon god, whose annual ritual marriage to Hathor of Dendara constituted one of the most important celebrations in the city.

Lunch on board as you sail.

In the afternoon, you will visit Esna Temple. Construction on this temple began in the early 2nd century BC and continued for 400 years. It is dedicated to the god Khumn, who the ancients believed created the world and fashioned the first humans from Nile mud. The temple lies 10 metres below present ground level, with the town of Esna surrounding it. You will see the excavated hypostyle hall, while the other remains lie buried beneath the buildings of the modern town.

Dinner on board.

Overnight: Gaia Dahabiya
Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner on board the Dahabeya

Breakfast on board.

Visit the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of Luxor, where New Kingdom pharaohs were laid to rest in secret tombs after centuries of pyramid robberies forced Egypt's royalty underground. Hidden, richly painted, and filled with treasures for the afterlife, these chambers have kept their splendour intact across more than three thousand years.

You will have insider access to two of the Valley's most remarkable tombs. The first belongs to the boy-king Tutankhamun - a small chamber hidden beneath debris until 1922, its walls painted with scenes from the Book of the Dead. The unprecedented treasures discovered inside (now displayed at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo) cemented Tut's place in history. The second is the tomb of Seti I, discovered in 1817 to international acclaim. The most completely finished tomb in the entire valley, it was the first to have every passage and chamber richly decorated, setting the standard for every royal tomb that followed.

Then visit the Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut - Egypt's only female pharaoh - whose brilliant white terraces rise dramatically from the desert floor against a backdrop of towering limestone cliffs. Built to honour Hathor, goddess of love, and Anubis, god of the dead, it served both religious and funerary purposes. After her death, her jealous stepson Tuthmosis III defaced her image throughout, in an attempt to erase her memory forever.

Pause at the famed Colossi of Memnon, two towering statues of Amenhotep III that once guarded the entrance to his magnificent mortuary temple. Renamed by the Ancient Greeks in honour of their Trojan hero Memnon, the statues later became a Roman tourist attraction. You can still see the graffiti of prominent travellers carved into the sandstone today.

Lunch on board.

In the afternoon, visit the Temple of Luxor. A three-kilometer Avenue of Sphinxes once connected this temple to Karnak. Built by Amenhotep III in 1380 BC and expanded by later pharaohs, it hosted the great Festival of Opet, a sacred celebration lasting almost a month each year.

Dinner on board.

Overnight: Gaia Dahabiya
Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner on board the Dahabeya

Breakfast on board.

This morning, visit Karnak Temple, a vast complex built over 2,000 years by generations of pharaohs in honour of the god Amun. Its pylons, obelisks, and smaller shrines would take days to fully explore. Walk through the great Hypostyle Hall, a forest of 134 giant pillars rising 23 metres towards the sky, and stand beside the Sacred Lake where priests once purified themselves before performing rites. At the height of its power, Karnak received annual tribute from more than 65 cities across the region.

Disembark and transfer from Dahabeya to Luxor airport.

Meals: Breakfast on board the Dahabeya