NILE CRUISE

Our cruise aboard the Nile Lily begins at Aswan, where we board the Nile Lily, an old-fashioned, two-masted sailing yacht, and our home for the next six nights.

Between Aswan and Luxor we will navigate the Nile at a leisurely pace (using a small tug only when 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.

As an optional extra, participants might choose to take an early-morning flight to Abu Simbel, where the Great Temple of Ramses II on the shores of Lake Nasser is rightly acclaimed as one of the world’s most splendid architectural ensembles.

Kom Ombo, standing sentinel on a promontory overlooking the Nile, is the captivating setting for the temple 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.