Day 1: Cairo
- Arrival at Cairo Airport.
- Meet and greet by our representative.
- Transfer to your hotel in Cairo.
- Check-in and time to rest.
- Leisure time to explore the city on your own or relax at the hotel.
- Overnight stay in Cairo.
Day 2: Cairo – Full day tour Pyramids & Sphinx
- Your guide will meet you at the hotel to start your sightseeing.
- Get excited by a wonderful tour to the Pyramids of Cheops, Chephren and Mykerinus.
- After seeing the famous pyramids and getting lots of photos, visit the Valley Temple.
- The place where the priests mummified the dead body of King Chephren, owner of the second pyramid at Giza Plateau.
- This is the place where you can have a close-up look at the Sphinx, the legendary guardian that stands by the huge funeral complex with its lion body and the head of King Chephren.
- The Grand Egyptian Museum is a monumental cultural project located just two kilometres from the Giza Pyramids, designed to be the world’s largest museum dedicated to a single civilization.
- Its striking modern architecture features a translucent alabaster façade and a dramatic entrance atrium dominated by a colossal statue of Ramses II.
- Inside, the museum houses more than 100,000 artifacts spanning Egypt’s prehistoric era through the Greek and Roman periods. A major highlight is the complete collection of Tutankhamun’s treasures, displayed together for the first time in history with state-of-the-art preservation and presentation methods.
- The museum is built as an immersive journey through ancient Egypt, using cutting-edge technology, interactive exhibits, and panoramic views of the Giza Plateau. In addition to its galleries, GEM includes restoration laboratories, educational spaces, restaurants, landscape gardens, and retail areas, creating a full cultural and visitor experience.
- With its scale, design, and unrivalled archaeological collection, the Grand Egyptian Museum stands as a global landmark and a new gateway to Egypt’s ancient wonders.
- Accommodation at your chosen hotel.
Day 3: Cairo – Aswan – Nile Cruise (Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday)
- Enjoy a private airport transfer accompanied by an English-speaking representative.
- Board a flight in Cairo with direct service to Aswan. Approximate flight duration is one hour & half. Flight on own.
- Enjoy a private airport transfer accompanied by an English-speaking escort.
- Welcome aboard! Have you ever dreamed of a day tour to the most exciting places in Aswan. Get the chance to visit the High Dam, an engineering miracle built in 1960 protecting Egypt from annual floods from the Nile.
- Proceed to visit the Unfinished Obelisk which shows the techniques used by the ancient Egyptians to cut obelisks.
- The impressive Aswan High Dam was a marvel of engineering when it was constructed.
- Originally conceived to Egypt’s irrigation of farmland to mitigate against drought and famine in low water years, and flooding in high-water years.
- Visit the dam with your private guide and spend a half day learning about Aswan. The dam displaced over 100,000 Nubians in Sudan and Egypt alike and was part of a major relocation project for archaeological sites under the UNESCO Nubia Campaign, including the Abu Simbel temples and Philae.
- Other sites were eventually flooded by Lake Nasser, the world’s largest artificial lake that was created by the Aswan High Dam.
- Then head to Philae and the Temple of Isis on Agilikia Island. Stop at the stone quarries to see the unfinished obelisk, the largest known ancient obelisk and a very good practical demonstration of the methods used by ancient craftsmen to create impressive monuments.
- Marks from workers’ tools are still clearly visible on the bedrock.
- Accommodation: At your chosen Nile Cruise.
Day 4: Aswan – Kom Ombo – Edfu
- A horse carriage will be waiting for you and your private guide to explore the Temple of Horus in Edfu.
- Dedicated to Horus, the falcon god, the temple was built from 230 to 57 BC by Ptolemy III and his successors and is considered the best-preserved cult temple in Egypt because of its later construction date.
- Despite its late era origins, it reflects traditional pharaonic architecture, and the Temple’s inscribed building texts provide an excellent idea of how all the temples once looked, with details about its construction.
- It fell into disuse as a religious monument when the Roman Empire banned all non-Christian worship within the Empire in 391. Edfu is an impressive temple, and is the second largest in Egypt after Karnak Temple.
- Visit the Kom Ombo Temple with your private guide and disembark from your Nile cruise to explore on foot the Kom Ombo Temple, a unique Greco-Roman temple dedicated to two gods: Sobek, the crocodile god, and Haroeris, the sun god.
- The Temple in Kom Ombo dates from about 180 BC, during a period known as the Ptolemaic era, and had some additions built on to it during Roman times.
- It stands right on the bank of the Nile between Edfu and Aswan. The temple is unusual in that it is a double temple, with one side dedicated to the god Haroeris and the other side to Sobek.
- The design is almost perfectly symmetrical, with two side-by-side sanctuaries and two parallel passageways leading through the outer parts of the temple.
- The right side is dedicated to Sobek (the crocodile god combined with the sun god Re), along with his wife (a form of Hathor) and their son Khonsu. Sobek is associated with Seth, the enemy of Horus. In the myth of Horus and Osiris, Seth and his followers changed themselves into crocodiles to escape.
- The ancient Egyptians believed that by honouring the fearsome crocodile as a god, they would be safe from attacks. The left side is dedicated to Haroeris, the "Good Doctor" (a form of the falcon-headed god Horus the Elder) along with his consort Ta Sent Nefer, the "Good Sister" (another form of Hathor).
- Accommodation: At your chosen Nile Cruise.
Day 05: Edfu – Luxor
- Luxor is home to one of the world’s greatest open-air museums, with the ruins of Karnak and the Temples of Luxor in easy reach along the East Bank of the city. With your private Egyptologist guide, visit the impressive UNESCO World Heritage Sites of the monuments of Karnak and Luxor, learning more about ancient Egypt’s fascinating and lengthy history.
- The Temples of Karnak: Begin with a visit to the Temples of Karnak, strolling along the Avenue of Sphinx to enter the complex. The Temples of Karnak make up the history of Thebes and consist of colossal sandstone columns transported 100 miles along the Nile River, panoramic friezes. Discover with your guide how the massive façade was constructed.
- The Temples of Luxor: Continue to Luxor Temple which was once joined to the Temples of Karnak by a 1.25-mile-long Avenue of Sphinx; a portion of which marks the entrance to the temple. The temple dates to approximately 1400 BC and is dedicated to the rejuvenation of kingship rather than the pharaohs, cult gods or deified versions of the king in death. During the Roman era, the temple and its surroundings served as a legionary fortress and acted as the home of the Roman government in the area.
- Accommodation: At your chosen Nile Cruise.
Day 6: Luxor – Check out
- After breakfast, disembark from your cruise and begin a guided tour of Luxor’s West Bank. Some of the most spectacular sites in all of Egypt can be found on the West Bank of the Nile, near Luxor. Meet with your private guide and driver to spend a day exploring the West Bank of the Nile.
- Valley of the Kings (exclude King Tut tomb entry): The famed Valley of the Kings, hidden between rocky escarpments, was the final resting place for the kings of the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties. Their main attraction is their wonderfully vivid wall paintings. Since it was believed that the dead man, accompanied by the sun god (or perhaps having become one with the sun god) sailed through the underworld at night in a boat, the walls of the tombs were adorned with texts and scenes depicting this voyage and giving the dead man instruction on its course.
- Mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut: Explore the recently renovated mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut, the second historically confirmed female pharaoh. She is generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an indigenous Egyptian dynasty, and remembered as the first great woman in history of whom we are informed.
- Colossi of Memnon: End the visit to the West Bank with a visit to the Colossi of Memnon, the only remaining monuments of the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III.
- Time to say goodbye to the Land of the Pharaohs. Bid good-bye to all the friends you made on the tour. Enjoy a private transfer to Luxor airport to fly back to Cairo, then to home, where your memorable tour of Egypt comes to an end.
