ABOUT THE TOUR
TOUR LEADER
Bridget Wheeler
TOUR DATE: 13 NOVEMBER 2024 – 2 NOVEMBER 2024
SINGLE SUPPLEMENT: £2,375
Price Includes
- International flights
- Air passenger duty, passenger service charge, airline security charges, airport taxes and fuel surcharges where applicable – currently £367 (liable to change without notice)
- Accommodation throughout as shown in the itinerary
- Breakfast daily; 10 lunches; 10 dinners
- Entry visa upon arrival
- All entrance fees, visits, excursions and transportation as per the itinerary
- Gratuities in restaurants for included meals; gratuities to driver/s; porterage
- Gratuities to guide/s
- Local English-speaking guide/s
- The services of your tour leader throughout
Price Excludes
- Travel insurance
- Items of personal expenditure (e.g. telephone calls / laundry etc.)
- Government levies or taxes introduced after costing and publication of this programme on 24/01/24
London / Cairo
Depart London Heathrow on Egypt Air MS 778 at 14.00 hrs arriving Cairo at 20.45 hrs. Transfer to the Kempinski Nile Hotel where three nights are spent. Located directly on the banks of the Nile, just a kilometre from the main downtown area, this hotel offers a fusion of contemporary European flair with Egyptian charm. Dinner under own arrangements.
Cairo
Explore Cairo beginning with the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, which houses the world’s greatest collection of Egyptian antiquities, including thousands of statues, jewels and artefacts from nearly every period of ancient Egypt. Continue exploring Islamic Cairo, including the ancient Citadel with its four museums and three mosques, including the exquisite Alabaster Mosque of Muhammed Ali.
Lunch at a local restaurant in the Khan El Khalili Bazaar. After lunch roam through the bustling maze of the Khan El Khalili Bazaar known for its jewellery, lanterns and other trinkets. Dinner at El Kababgy at the Sofitel El Gezira Hotel.
Cairo
Explore Cairo beginning with the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, which houses the world’s greatest collection of Egyptian antiquities, including thousands of statues, jewels and artefacts from nearly every period of ancient Egypt. Continue exploring Islamic Cairo, including the ancient Citadel with its four museums and three mosques, including the exquisite Alabaster Mosque of Muhammed Ali.
Lunch at a local restaurant in the Khan El Khalili Bazaar. After lunch roam through the bustling maze of the Khan El Khalili Bazaar known for its jewellery, lanterns and other trinkets. Dinner at El Kababgy at the Sofitel El Gezira Hotel.
Cairo / Luxor
This morning depart (with luggage) and visit the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. This is the first museum focusing on the earliest civilization in history across various key historical phases, starting with the pre-dynastic and ancient Egyptian periods and continuing across the Greco- Roman, Coptic, Islamic and contemporary modern times.
Lunch at a local restaurant. Transfer to Cairo Airport for a domestic Egypt Air flight to Luxor. Transfer to the Al Moudira Hotel for one night. The hotel has the feel of a grand country house, embellished historic details, with courtyards and surrounded by palm groves and exotic gardens. Dinner at the hotel.
Luxor
Depart (with luggage) to explore the Valley of the Kings, a vast City of the Dead where the pharaohs-built tombs, many of which still retain their exquisite painted or carved relief decoration. Visit some of the most important of these before continuing to the superbly restored Queen Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple, which rises out of the desert plain in a series of terraces. Also see the Colossi of Memnon, two gigantic and much damaged statues, which have stared out across the desert for thousands of years. Transfer to board your Nile cruise vessel, the Hadeel Dahabyia, home for the next five nights. This vintage Nile Dahabyia boat, offers a combination of traditional style and modern luxury. There are eight comfortable en-suite cabins as well as a restaurant, a lounge bar, spacious sun deck and jacuzzi.
Lunch on board. Visit two of Egypt’s greatest temples, beginning with Karnak, the most overwhelming of Egypt’s temple sites, with its huge Hypostyle Hall and 134 richly carved columns, numerous temples, shrines, pylons, courts, gigantic statues of the pharaohs and avenues of sphinxes, which cover a vast area – the result of continuous building for over a thousand years. Then continue to the Temple of Luxor, which developed over many centuries, built overlooking the Nile and is dedicated to the god Amun. Dinner on board.
Esna / El Kab
All day sailing, relaxing on deck and watching the unchanging life along the banks of the river unfold before us. Some scenes appear almost biblical – the banks lined with palm trees, boys riding donkeys, fields of crops and mud brick villages with roofs made of palm leaves.
Lunch and dinner on board.
El Kab / Edfu
This morning sail on to El Kab which consists of prehistoric and ancient Egyptian settlements, rock-cut tombs of the early Eighteenth Dynasty (1550-1295 BC), remains of temples dating from the Early Dynastic period (3100-2686 BC) to the Ptolemaic Kingdom (332-30 BC), as well as part of the walls of a Coptic monastery.
Lunch on board. Continue to sail to Edfu and visit the extraordinary 2,000-year-old Temple of Horus which is the largest and most completely preserved Pharaonic temple in Egypt. Dinner on board.
Edfu / Gebel El Silsila
Sail this morning to Gebel El Silsila to visit the Granite Quarries, which supplied the stone for so many of Egypt’s ancient monuments, and the gigantic Unfinished Obelisk. Continue to sail towards Kom Ombo.
Lunch on board. Remainder of the afternoon at leisure. Dinner on board.
Gebel El Silsila / Kom Ombo
On arrival in Kom Ombo enjoy a visit to the temple, which was discovered by accident buried under the desert sands. Standing on a promontory at a bend in the Nile, it is still impressive despite its ruined state, and is unique in being dedicated to two gods – Sobek and Haroeris.
Lunch on board. Afternoon at leisure. Remain at Kom Ombo overnight. Dinner on board.
Nile Cruise / Aswan
Depart to Aswan and visit the High Dam, built by President Nasser in the 1960’s on the creation of Lake Nasser. Also visit the Temple of Philae, rebuilt in a beautiful setting on the Island of Agilka. Built to honour the goddess Isis, this was the last temple built in the classical Egyptian style. Construction began around 690 BC, and it was one of the last outposts where the goddess was worshipped. Transfer to the hotel and check into the Sonesta Nouba Hotel for two nights, a Nubian Style hotel located along the banks of the river Nile.
Lunch under own arrangements. Remainder of the afternoon at leisure. Dinner under own arrangements.
Aswan / Abu Simbel / Aswan
Aswan / Cairo / Alexandria
This morning transfer to Aswan Airport for a short Egypt Air flight to Cairo and continue by the desert road to El Alamein, site of the critical and decisive British victory in the North Africa campaign of 1940/43, when the British Eighth Army under Montgomery halted the advance of the German Afrika Corps under Rommel towards the Nile. Visit the Alamein Museum, which houses war-time memorabilia and artefacts, and the British and Commonwealth, German and Italian Cemeteries.
Lunch at a local restaurant. Drive to Alexandria and check into the Steigenberger Cecil Hotel, overlooking the bay and yacht club, where two nights are spent. Dinner at the hotel.
Alexandria
Visit Alexandria’s Graeco-Roman Museum which was first opened in 1892, before moving to a larger space in 1895. The extraordinary quality of the collection reflects the luxurious nature of ancient Alexandria and the surrounding area. Continue to The Roman Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa also known as the hill of treasure, regarded as a huge necropolis and royal cemetery. The necropolis consists of a series of Alexandrian tombs, statues and archaeological objects of the Pharaonic funerary cult with Hellenistic and early Imperial Roman influences.
Lunch at a local restaurant. Visit Pompey’s Pillar, a name given to a Roman triumphal column in Alexandria, Egypt. Set up in honour of the Roman emperor Diocletian between 298–302 AD, the giant Corinthian column originally supported a colossal porphyry statue of the emperor in armour. Also visit the Qait Bay Fort, which houses the naval museum. Dinner at a local sea food restaurant.
Alexandria / Cairo / London
After breakfast transfer from the hotel in Alexandria to Cairo. Lunch under own arrangements.
Transfer to Cairo airport for Egypt Air flight MS 779 departing at 17.45 hrs and arriving London Heathrow at 21.00 hrs.
START PLANNING YOUR TRIP WITH US
"*" indicates required fields