Top Rated 5 Day Nile Cruise Luxor to Aswan with Balloon

Luxor

Pickup in Luxor by a Let's Discover Egypt representative, from your hotel, the airport or the railway station, then on to the 5-star boat before lunch. Lunch is served on board. The afternoon covers the east bank, Karnak and Luxor Temple. Dinner on board, a folkloric show after it, and the first night moored at Luxor. Meals that day: lunch and dinner. Check-in on the boat is at 12:00 PM, so the operator prefers an early pickup. Sightseeing then starts on arrival rather than in the lobby, and it keeps you off the sites in the worst of the heat.

Karnak Open Air Museum

Karnak fills the afternoon after lunch. It is a walled complex rather than a single temple, sanctuaries, kiosks, pylons and obelisks raised to the Theban gods and to the glory of Egypt's pharaohs, and it was the most important centre for the worship of the Theban triad, Amun, Mut and Khonsu. The Open Air Museum stands inside the same walls and needs a separate ticket. Then the drive over to Luxor Temple.

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Luxor Temple

Luxor Temple next. Most of it is the work of Amenhotep III, an 18th Dynasty pharaoh of the New Kingdom, and it was completed by Tutankhamun and Ramses II. Ramses II raised the first pylon and had it carved with scenes from his military battle at Kadesh. Dinner on board, folkloric show, overnight at Luxor.

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Hot Air Balloon over the West Bank of Luxor

An early pickup for the balloon over the west bank of Luxor, 40 to 55 minutes in the air. The great temples and the mountains sit below you from up there, and the city reads as the open air museum it gets called. A breakfast box comes with the flight.

Colossi of Memnon

A photo stop at the Colossi of Memnon after landing. The twin statues are Amenhotep III, around 60 feet each, with smaller figures cut at his feet, his wife on one side and his mother on the other, and they stand where the entrance to his mortuary temple was, in the Theban necropolis west of the Nile. The name comes from a sound one of them made after an earthquake. Both are quartzite sandstone, which archaeologists believe was quarried at El-Gabal el-Ahmar near modern Cairo and hauled 420 miles overland to Thebes. Then the drive to the Hatshepsut temple.

Temple of Hatshepsut

The temple of Queen Hatshepsut after that. Terraces climb off the desert floor and run into the limestone cliffs on the eastern face of the Theban mountain, so at a distance the built part and the rock are hard to tell apart. The guide covers her reign and her story with her nephew. Then the Valley of the Kings.

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Valley of the Kings

The Valley of the Kings, called the Great Place of Truth in its own day, where pharaohs were buried in heavy stone sarcophagi. You can look into the tombs of kings including Merneptah, Ramesses III and Ramesses VI. Back on board afterwards, and the boat gets moving in the afternoon for Edfu, through the Esna lock, with lunch aboard and afternoon tea on the sundeck as the bank goes by. Dinner on board, and the night moored at Edfu.

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Edfu Temple

Breakfast on board, then Edfu, the best preserved temple in Egypt and dedicated to the hawk god Horus. The Ptolemaic building went up on the site of a much earlier temple and dates to the reign of Ptolemy III, 237 B.C. The wall scenes set out the contending of Horus and Seth, probably performed once a year as religious drama. Back to the boat, then the sail on towards Kom Ombo, with lunch aboard and tea on the sundeck.

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Kom Ombo Temple

Nearly five hours of sailing to Kom Ombo, tea on the sundeck for most of it. The temple and its settlement site are 45 KM north of Aswan, on the bank between Edfu and Aswan, which is what makes it such a convenient stop for cruises. It was built in 180 B.C. under the Ptolemaic dynasty and dedicated to two gods, Sobek the crocodile god and Horus the elder. On to Aswan after that, dinner on board, Galabyia party, overnight at Aswan.

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Aswan High Dam

Breakfast on board, then the High Dam, finished in 1960 to protect Egypt from the flood and generate electricity. It runs 3600 metres long, 980 metres thick at the base and 111 metres tall at its highest point, and Lake Nasser, the world's largest man-made lake, has gathered behind it. Between them they supply irrigation water and electricity for the whole of Egypt. The dam is 13 km south of Aswan. Then the drive to Philae.

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Temple of Philae

Philae Temple next, reached by a small motorboat. The Greco-Roman temple was built for the goddess Isis and stands on Aglika Island, just south of the old Aswan Dam, which is not where it started. The High Dam threatened to submerge it permanently, so the complex was moved. Philae rose to prominence under the Ptolemaic dynasty as the centre of the cult of Isis, and it was one of the last places where the old religion was still practised after Christianity arrived in Egypt, closing officially only in 551 AD. Early Christians then used the main temple on the island as a church. Back to the boat afterwards, lunch and dinner on board, a folkloric show in the evening and an optional tour to the Nubian Village. Overnight at Aswan.

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