Day 1 – Cairo
The first day is just about arriving, with the goal to have everyone installed at the hotel by 6pm.
Day 2 – Pyramids and drive to Hurghada, overnight at Red Sea Resort
After a night’s sleep, you will be ready for your first big day of exploring, and this is going to be a big one – it is time to visit the Pyramids! These, like France’s Eiffel Tower or England’s Houses of Parliament, an instantly recognizable world symbol, and have been for thousands of years. They’ve captivated travelers to Egypt for millennia.
After a decent breakfast (breakfast is included every day on the trip), you will hop into your bus (a vehicle where is going to become intimately acquainted with over the next few days), for the short ride to the Pyramids.
The first stop on your Pyramid tour is the Saqqara burial ground. This is a huge necropolis, noted for being the place where the oldest surviving pyramid in the world can be found: the Djoser step pyramid. This is thought to be the pyramid that started the whole large-scale stone-cut template of pyramid building – with later models losing the steps. Dating from the 27th century BC, and housing the remains of King Djoser, this 5000 year old building is definitely one of the oldest man made structures surviving today.
It is a fitting spot to start your tour, as you guide will set the stage for explaining the history of pyramid building and burial in Egypt, a trajectory of construction that led ultimately to the creation of the Great Pyramids of Giza. The guide definitely know his stuff, teaching you all sorts of fascinating facts about the rites surrounding life in ancient Egypt, from birth through to death. This continued throughout your entire tour, and it is clear that this is a subject in which your guide is passionate and well-informed.
Back to the step Pyramid. You can start the tour with a fifteen minute or so talk on the history of pyramid building and the rituals surrounding death in Ancient Egypt, before being given around 20 minutes of free time to explore. In this time you can haggle with the vendors, take advantage of a donkey or camel ride, or just wander and take pictures.
Once we’d seen the step pyramids thoroughly, and go back in the bus, and on your way to the main event – the Great Pyramids of Giza.
These are pretty much instantly recognizable symbols of Egypt, They are just so big!
From the Great Pyramids you will head up; to an overlook which give a great view of the Giza Pyramid complex, and from where an optional camel ride is available.
Finally, it is time to leave the Pyramid complex, and so you will head to lunch, a five minute drive away. Another note not every meal is included, in particular lunches and dinners. You are generally presented with an option or two for meals.
Following a delicious lunch, there is a brief stop in a perfume shop, where you can ahev some lovely tea, and a wonderful gentleman can take you through the history of perfume making in Egypt, and show you a whole number of his perfumes, many of which are used as the base for brand perfumes in the West.
Of course, there is the option to buy at the end of this experience, but this is a very low pressure environment, and many people opted to pick up perfume as gifts for friends and family. These are presented in really beautiful glass bottles, and well packed – a really nice gift option.
And then it is time for the less exciting part of the day – the bus ride! Egypt is a large country, and the sights are spread out from the top to the bottom of the country. In your 8 days, you’d be covering over 2,000km, which inevitably meant quite a bit of time on a bus!
Finally, after dark, we you will arrive at your resort. This stop is where the itinerary diverges from that on the website, as the website has you driving straight through to Luxor. That would be a very long drive, so I’m certainly thankful that we had this overnight stop in Hurghada. Even better, this stop is at an all inclusive resort (including alcoholic drinks!), so you will be able to enjoy a few beers before and after dinner, which is nice.
Day 3 – Half day relaxing in Hurghada, then half day drive to Luxor, overnight at Luxor
After a jam packed day of Pyramids and driving, your third day is a lot more relaxing. You can have a half day at the resort, where you can take advantage of the pool, swimming in the Red Sea, a leisurely breakfast, or of course, those inclusive drinks. After lunch, you can board the bus, and it is another long drive to Luxor, where you will also arrive after dark.
Here you can go to a local Irish pub for dinner.
The food is generally ok, here there is also the option to get some engraving done, with a local engraver available to engrave various things in hieroglyphics. Then, it is time for bed, with another full day ahead of you.
Day 4 – Valley of the Kings, Temple of Hatshepsut, Luxor, drive to Aswan, Nubian Dinner, night on cruise ship
In the morning, you will rise fairly early for a full breakfast. On this tour there is the option of a sunrise balloon trip., it is require a super early start on a day that is already going to be jam packed.
After breakfast, you can head to another incredibly famous Egyptian location – the Valley of the Kings, stopping on the way to visit some statues.
The Valley of the Kings was the Egyptian solution to graves being robbed. Whilst a pyramid is all well and good, it’s a bit of an obvious construction, and the Pharaohs who were buried in them often had their tombs robbed at some point after their burial. Filling your tomb with treasure and then making it a giant landmark was probably never going to work as a long term security-focused plan.
The solution was, rather obviously, to start hiding the tombs. Admittedly, it took a thousand years or so between the Pyramids being used and the Valley of the Kings being used, during which time Egypt was busy having some history happening, with dynasties coming and going, new rulers, invasions and the like. That’s one thing you quickly realise when visiting Egypt, these guys have been around for A Long Time.
The Valley of the Kings was picked as the resting place for at least 20 Egyptian rulers over a period of around 500 years. Obviously, a pyramid would have been better as a resting place, but those cunning Egyptians found a valley with a hill that looks rather like a pyramid, and must have concluded that on the whole, getting to keep all their treasures was worth not having a real pyramid.
Sadly, despite all their careful efforts, many of the tombs were robbed anyway. A notable exception to this being the world famous tomb of Tutankhamun, whose tomb was discovered almost intact in 1922.
Visiting the Valley of the Kings is a fantastic experience. There are twelve tombs that are generally open to the public, although they are often rotated so as to minimize the impact of visitors on the delicate interiors. Other measures to reduce damage to the tombs include no photography being allowed at all on the site, and guides not being allowed to lead tours inside the tombs themselves.
Following on from the Valley of the Kings you can head to the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut. This has been almost entirely reconstructed, and is unusual for an Egyptian temple in that it is more like a classical Greek temple. It’s spread over three levels, and is thought to be one of the most beautiful temples in Egypt, although to be honest, competition is high for that title!
From here you can head for lunch in a nearby village. Featuring a traditional BBQ of meat accompanied by all the classic Egyptian side dishes, including flat breads and dips.
Then, back to the bus, and a drive down to Aswan. Here, our group split depending on what exact tour they booked on. If you booked on the Nile Cruise, so you can checked in to rather nice river cruise ship, where you can spend the next three nights.
Once checked in, it is time for an optional evening activity, which everyone can choose to do, example, the experience of a Nubian dinner. This is involve a half hour boat ride, follow by a dinner in a traditional Nubian household. The food is really excellent. Then, after a half hour boat ride home, it is time for bed.
Day 5 – Abu Simbel Temples, Philae Temple, Nile Cruise
I’m not going to lie, this is one busy tour. There’s a lot to see in Egypt, and this tour definitely does its best to get you around the highlights. One of those highlights is of course the Abu Simbel temples – the incredible temples carved out of the rock, way down in the south of Egypt. As part of the Nile damn project, these were to be flooded, but after an incredible effort, the temples were moved in their entirety about thirty meters above their original location, and rebuilt in their original splendor.
It’s about a three hour drive from Aswan to the Abu Simbel temples, and for security reasons, tour buses travel in a convoy. This departs Aswan at 4am.
The bus is comfortable enough to get a bit of rest as you will drive down, and able to wake up for long enough to watch a glorious sunrise.
The temples themselves were, as you might imagine, pretty stunning. Originally built in 1264BC, they fell into disuse and were buried by the desert sands for centuries, before being rediscovered in 1813. Today they are a UNESCO world heritage site, and very much near the top of the list of incredible Egyptian temples to visit.
Wandering these two temples is incredible, especially when you consider everything in them, including the pillars, was carved out of the solid rock. Photography inside the temples isn’t allowed (they are quite strict on this!),This ankh represents the concept of eternal life, and often appears in images of Egyptian gods, so is generally considered good luck to hold.
From Abu Simbel, after a strong and reviving Egyptian coffee, back in the bus for the convoy ride to Aswan. From Aswan you will hop on a boat to visit the Temple of Philae. This sits on an island in the reservoir formed by the Aswan Low Dam, where it was moved in the 1960’s so as to be above the water level permanently.
Built in the 4th century BC, the Temple of Philae was believed to be one of the burying places of Osiris, god of the underworld and resurrection. The temple feels very Roman, largely because much of was it was constructed by the Romans during their time in Egypt.
You can also found the graffiti on the walls to be interesting, left as it was by Victorian-era travellers. You can find this sort of writing engraved on many Egyptian monuments, obviously leaving a mark on an artifact that is potentially thousands of years old is pretty uncool, but those Victorian travellers clearly had a slightly different set of values.
On from the temple and it head back to the boat, where the group split up. Some of you who taking the cruise remained on the boat, where you will spend the next couple of nights cruising up the Nile. Other members of the party will doing the other itineraries – one, the Felucca trip, which involves sailing up the Nile on a traditional Felucca, and the others will doa land based trip, which mean they have another full day to explore Aswan, before you would meet them again in Luxor.
Certainly, the Felucca version of the trip offers a wonderfully authentic experience, the land tour option you get an hour of sailing on a Felucca, but then have to handle a bus ride from Aswan to Cairo, which is around a fifteen hour drive!
Day 6 – Nile Cruise, Kom Ombo Temple, Edfu Temple.
Your sixth day dawned with your cruising up the Nile on your cruise boat. This is a very comfortable vessel, with nice rooms, lovely big windows to enjoy the view, and a huge top-deck that ran the length of the boat. It is from here that you can to watch the sunrise as you cruise up the Nile.
I can definitely recommend popping above deck to watch the sunrise – there’s always something magical about watching the first light hit the world around you, especially in a country with so much history.
There’s something so relaxing about a river cruise), watching the scenery go by, enjoying excellent food, and stopping off for a bit of sight-seeing as you go.
You can stop at the Temple of Kom Ombo (also home to a rather interesting mummified crocodile museum), and the Temple of Horus at Edfu. This latter included a buggy ride to the temple, which is a lot of fun.
Then, back to the boat, and an afternoon tea, followed by a lovely sunset, and a few drinks with your fellow travelling companions. You can also pass through a number of locks on the river during this part of the voyage.
Day 7 – Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, Papyrus Scrolls
Final day on the river cruise. The boat arrives into Luxor, where you will set off to explore the impressive Luxor temple.
One of the most interesting things about Luxor temple, is the enormous obelisk that stands outside it. This was once a set of two – the other now sits in Paris’s Place du Concorde. Given the size and scale of this monument, carved out of solid rock.
From Luxor Temple you can also go to Karnak Temple. Karnak temple was originally connected to Luxor temple by a three kilometre long avenue of sphinxes, but only a part of this survives today.
Karnak Temple is the second largest ancient religious site in the world, after Angkor Wat, so as you can imagine, is fairly impressive also. This is a bit of a thing with Egypt, everything is just so impressive.
Each temple held it’s own unique points of interest and fascination In the case of Karnak, easily the most impressive part is the sheer scale, a feature that is particularly obvious in Hypostyle Hall, a 5,000 square meter hall consisting of 134 enormous columns, the majority of which are 10 meters tall, with a few being 21 meters tall! There are also a number of obelisks here – one is missing, as it was borrowed by the Romans in 357AD, and is still standing in Rome.
That happens to be the largest obelisk in the world, and originally weighed 455 tons – the mind boggles as to how the Romans transported it from Egypt to Rome!
Following the temple tour of Karnak, the last stop is at a Papyrus store, where you will learn all about the art of making papyrus scrolls, and were able to purchase any artworks you are interesting with.
Then, load up into the bus for the final big trip – all the way from Luxor to Cairo. This is a long trip, running from around 4pm to just after midnight.
Day 8 – Cairo Museum, Mosque of Muhammad Ali, Sound and Light Show
Your last full day with is dedicate to exploring Cairo.
The day started with a visit to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, most often known as the Museum of Cairo. This is one of Egypt’s largest museums, home to over 120,000 items, with arguably the most famous being the Gold Mask of Tutankhamen.
From the museum you will head to a few other areas of Cairo. You will visit the incredible Mosque of Muhammad Ali, also known as the alabaster mosque, where you will learn a little about the Muslim religion and worshipping practices.
Then you will go to the Hanging Church and Citadel. You will also visit a famous shopping district the Khan El Khalili Bazars – this being the last day of the tour, this gave everyone a last chance to pick up some souvenirs or gifts for folks back home. Finally, it go back to the hotel.
Day 9 – End
Last day heading home, and transfer to the airport 。