ANCIENT EGYPT & NILE CRUISE

From our hotel overlooking the Pyramids at Giza, and then from our private sailing yacht on the Nile, this study course unravels the secrets behind one of antiquity's most beguiling civilisations: the ancient Egyptians.

Our twelve-day tour focuses on some of archaic man’s most prodigious achievements: the Great Sphinx, the Great Pyramid, the Valley of the Kings, the vast Karnak temple complex and Abu Simbel, home to four colossal statues of Ramses II.

Our journey begins on the edge of the desert at Saqqara, once the cemetery for ancient Memphis, now best known for its proto-typical Step Pyramid. An in-depth tour of Giza follows, as well as a visit to the Egyptian Antiquities Museum, the splendid repository for the Pharaonic treasures rescued from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

From Cairo we transfer by air to Aswan, where we board the Nile Lily, an old-fashioned, two-masted sailing yacht, our home for the next eight nights. Between Aswan and Luxor we will navigate the Nile at a leisurely pace (using a small tug only where necessary), mooring each evening beside a village or in the open countryside.

After visiting Agilika Island, the idyllic stage for a remarkable series of monuments saved from the flooded island of Philae, we will inspect Aswan High Dam and tour the famous granite quarries. We then take the most exotic of excursions by air to the Great Temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel, one of the world’s most spectacular architectural ensembles, before retuning to the Nile Lily to continue our cruise.

Kitchener Island, transformed into a botanist’s paradise by Lord Horatio Kitchener in the late 19th century, makes a particularly rewarding visit, as does the 10th century fortress monastery of St Simeon.

Kom Ombo, standing sentinel on a promontory overlooking the Nile, is the captivating setting for the temples of Sobek and Haroeris, dedicated to the crocodile god and his falcon-headed counterpart. At Edfu we will admire the vivid reliefs narrating the dramatic struggle for power between Horus and Set, whilst at Esna we will wonder at the miraculously preserved Temple of Khnum, the ram-headed deity revered as the guardian of the source of the Nile.

A detailed investigation of Luxor and its environs now follows, from the great necropolis of the Valley of the Kings to the sandstone Colossi of Memnon; from the temples, sphinxes and monumental gateways of Karnak to Amon, the world’s largest columned temple.