Day 01: Cairo, Egypt
Arrive Cairo and transfer to your hotel for check-in and overnight. Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel CairoDay 02: Cairo
Morning at leisure. This afternoon, your Egyptologist will escort you on a fascinating tour of 7,000 years of Egyptian history with a visit to the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. This evening, enjoy dinner at Aboel-Seed restaurant where dining tables are seated up as modern Egyptian houses; enjoy Egyptian traditional songs and museums as well as oriental food with Egyptian taste among Egyptian families and parties. Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel Cairo (B,D)Day 03: Cairo
Morning tour of the Great Pyramids of Giza. The only present-day survivors of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, they are among the world’s greatest tourist attractions and never lose their ability to inspire and overwhelm visitors. Your tour today includes an opportunity to enter inside one of these fabulous monuments and explore the mysteries of its ancient past for yourself. No trip to Egypt would be complete without a ride on a “ship of the desert”, and so you will have an opportunity to mount your individual camel for a short ride across the sands of Giza to the Sphinx. Enter the temple of the mysterious Sphinx, an ancient figure shrouded in legend and mystery. Next, enjoy a visit a papyrus institute to get an idea about Ancient Egyptian way of manufacturing paper out of papyrus plant, children will have an idea about hieroglyphic alphabetic and how the ancients Egyptian used natural symbols for writings. Then proceed to visit carpet-weaving school, where the local community has specialized for generations in weaving and textile crafts, see how these traditional rugs are hand-woven, without patterns, to the individual designs of each craftsperson. This evening, transfer to the Giza Plateau for the incredible spectacle of a Sound & Light Show at the foot of the Great Pyramids. Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel Cairo (B)Day 04: Cairo - Abu Simbel - Aswan
Transfer to the Cairo airport to board your flight to Abu Simbel. Enjoy a guided visit to Abu Simbel, then continue by air to Aswan. You are met by cruise staff at the Aswan airport and transferred to your 5-star deluxe Nile cruise boat the “Nile Adventurer” moored in private dock in Aswan. The onboard resident Egyptologist guide will escort you to visit the Aswan High Dam, Egypt’s contemporary example of building on a monumental scale. Take a short motorboat ride to visit the romantic and majestic Philae Temple on the Island of Agilka. Next, proceed to the Granite Quarries, which supplied the ancient Egyptians with most of the hard stone used in pyramids and temples, and still hold a huge unfinished obelisk. Nile Adventurer (B,L,D)Day 05: Aswan - Kom Ombo - Edfu - Esna
Cruise to Kom Ombo. Visit the Temple of Kom Ombo, dedicated to the crocodile-god Sobek. The temple stands at a bend in the Nile where in ancient times sacred crocodiles basked in the sun on the riverbank. Cruise to Edfu this afternoon, explore the largest and most completely preserved Pharaonic – albeit Greek-built – temple in Egypt, the extraordinary Temple of Horus at Edfu. Cruise to Esna for overnight. Nile Adventurer (B,L,D)Day 06: Esna - Luxor
Very early sail to Luxor and morning at leisure. This afternoon your Egyptologist will guide you on a tour of the East Bank of Luxor, starting with the strikingly graceful Temple of Luxor dedicated to the god Amun. Proceed to the Temple of Karnak, built over more than a thousand years by generations of Pharaohs. The great “Hypostyle Hall” is an incredible forest of giant pillars, covering an area larger than the whole of Notre Dame Cathedral. Nile Adventurer (B,L,D)
Day 07: Luxor - Cairo
Join your resident Egyptologist on a tour of the West Bank. Begin your day with a visit to the West Bank of Luxor to explore the Valley of the Kings, a vast City of the Dead where magnificent tombs were carved into the desert rocks, decorated richly, and filled with treasures for the afterlife by generations of Pharaohs. You will also have the chance to visit at least one tomb in the Valley of the Queens. Rising out of the desert plain in a series of terraces, the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut (Ancient Egypt’s only female Pharaoh) merges with the sheer limestone cliffs that surround it, as if nature herself had built this extraordinary monument. On the way back to the river Nile, your road passes by the famed Colossi of Memnon, known in Ancient Greek times for their haunting voices at dawn. Transfer to Luxor Airport to board your flight to Cairo. Arrive Cairo and transfer to your hotel for check-in and overnight. Intercontinental Heliopolis (B)Day 08: Cairo - Depart
Transfer to Cairo International Airport. (B)
