Unforgettable Egypt & Nile River Cruise

Arrive at Cairo International Airport in the late evening. You will be met at the airport and accompanied on a private air-conditioned bus to your 5-star hotel, recently redecorated in contemporary style.

Enjoy your morning at leisure. After lunch, enjoy a full day at the Museum, which holds the world’s greatest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts, including the room of golden treasures and two grand halls of artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamen.  Your tour will include the Mummies Room. B/L

Fly to Luxor, where you will embark the MS Jaz Legacy for your cruise up the Nile. Unpack for your week-long stay, enjoy views of the Nile from your cabin or from the Sun Deck, and join John and Diane Rehm and your other traveling companions for the Captain’s Welcome Reception and Dinner. Tonight the ship will cruise toward Esna. B/D

This morning you may join an optional excursion to Abu Simbel,* the new site of two great rock temples that were carved from a mountainside in the 13th century B.C. and first reported to the west by the ethnographer J.L. Burckhardt in 1813. Between 1964 and 1968, with the support of UNESCO and donors worldwide, the complex was dismantled, moved to higher ground, and reassembled. They were saved from being submerged by Lake Nasser, the reservoir created by the building of the Aswan Dam across the Nile.  

In the afternoon we will visit the Aswan High Dam, which provides irrigation and electricity for all of Egypt. Built in the 1960s, it increased the arable land in Egypt by 30% and doubled the country’s available supply of electricity. On the island of Agilka you will see the Philae Temple* which, like the temples at Abu Simbel, was moved in the 1960s to save it from the rising waters. Built over several centuries under the Greek Ptolomaic dynasty and dedicated primarily to Isis, it was the last known temple in the Mediterranean world built to honor the ancient Egyptian gods. The granite quarries that supplied hard stone for the pyramids and temples of antiquity are also nearby, and marked by one large unfinished obelisk. B/L/D

This morning you will have a peaceful sail aboard a traditional flat-bottom wooden sailing boat called a felucca. Sail around Elephantine Island, site of a ruined temple dedicated to Khnum, the ram-headed god of the Head of the Nile, and by extension the god who molded and created the human body. We will visit the Botanical Garden on Kitchener’s Island. This island in the Nile was given to Lord Kitchener for his services to the British Crown in the Sudan Campaign of the 1890s. He transformed the island into an exotic botanical garden enjoyed by both area residents and visitors.  

This  afternoon we will cruise to Kom Ombo to visit the double temple dedicated to Sobek the crocodile god and Horus the falcon-headed god whose enemies escaped by changing themselves into the ferocious crocodiles that inhabited the area. Believing that the menacing beasts would not turn on people who revered them, the inhabitants kept crocodiles within the temple as objects of worship and mummified many of them for burial. We will visit the Temple and continue toward Edfu. Tonight may be “Egyptian Night” on board, with a buffet of Egyptian specialties followed by music and dancing. B/L/D

The cruise to Qena passes through some of the most beautiful scenery along the Nile. Visit the Ptolemaic Temple of the goddess Hathor in Denderah. This well-preserved temple complex is a rare sight, with a massive stone roof, underground passages and towering columns inscribed with hieroglyphs. The main temple is nearly intact. Hathor, the beneficent deity of pleasure, of maternal and family love, and of beauty and light, was associated by the Greeks with Aphrodite. In Egyptian mythology she is associated with Isis, to whom one small temple here is dedicated. There are also two ritual birthing temples, one on each side of the temple to Hathor. After visiting the temples and learning some of their stories from the carvings and hieroglyphics, enjoy afternoon tea in the Lounge as you cruise to see Luxor for the unforgettable sight of the great temples at night. B/L/D

Disembark after breakfast and fly to Cairo. From there you will travel by air-conditioned coach to Alexandria, on the Mediterranean coast. Check in at your hotel, which offers views of the sea, and have dinner on your own. B/L

With your Egyptologist guide, visit ancient Memphis,* the legendary city of King Menes, who united Upper and Lower Egypt. Beginning as a fortress, it became the administrative and religious center of Egypt and one of the important cities of the ancient world. We will continue to Sakkara, site of the Step Pyramid, the oldest known of Egypt’s 107 pyramids and the world’s first freestanding stone structure. Tour the great limestone Pyramids of Giza,* built about 2500 B.C. for the Pharaohs Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus. The great Pyramid of Cheops, built of over 2,300,000 blocks of stone from the plateau and the hills outside Cairo, covers 13 acres. Just east of Chephren’s pyramid is the Valley Temple, which houses the mysterious Sphinx, embodiment of so many legends. B/L/D

If you are continuing to Jordan, you will proceed to the airport and fly to Amman instead of returning to the hotel for dinner and the night. See Extension itinerary.

After an early breakfast, leave for Cairo International Airport and your flight to London. After a layover there, continue to the U.S. B