We invite you to join us in Egypt, where the ancient world doesn’t just sit in a museum - it lives in the streets, the river and the desert. This journey takes you through the soul of a civilization that shaped humanity.
Our adventure begins in Alexandria. Founded by Alexander the Great, this ‘Pearl of the Mediterranean’ offers a mix of Greco-Roman history and elegant seaside charm, from the heights of the Citadel of Qaitbay to the depths of the Kom El Shoqafa catacombs.
We travel to Aswan in the south of Egypt, making use of an overnight sleeper train. Here, the Nile is at its most beautiful, flowing around granite islands and colourful Nubian villages. We witness the engineering marvel of the High Dam and the romantic beauty of the Sun Temple in Abu Simbel.
We spend 3 nights on the Nile in a privately chartered dahabiya, a shallow two-masted wooden boat, with ensuite cabins. This is an ideal way to experience the lifeline of Egypt in style and comfort.
Often described as the world’s greatest open-air museum, Luxor was built on the site of the New Kingdom’s capital of Thebes. The Nile splits the city into two distinct symbolic realms: the East Bank, known as the ‘land of the living’, and the West Bank, the ‘land of the dead’.
From the desert sand we head for Cairo, a bustling metropolis where modern life hums in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Giza. We stand before the last remaining Wonder of the Ancient World and look the Sphinx in the eye after exploring the golden treasures of the boy-king, Tutankhamun.
After an evening arrival at Cairo airport, we spend the night at a 4-star airport hotel.
A three-hour drive will take us to Alexandria, the maritime capital for nearly a thousand years, established by Alexander the Great following his conquest of Egypt in 332 BC. After a fresh fish lunch, we visit the striking new Bibliotheca Alexandrina, echoing the legendary historic library. The Greco-Roman Museum is dedicated to Egypt during the Greek (Ptolemaic) and Roman eras. The extensive collection is housed in a 19th century Neoclassical building, Egypt’s earliest purpose-built museum, recently restored. We stay in a historic 4-star hotel in the city centre.
This morning we explore Rashid, better known as Rosetta, situated where the Nile Delta meets the Mediterranean Coast. An hour’s drive from Alexandria, the town is famous for the 1799 discovery of the Rosetta Stone, which was central to Champollion’s deciphering of the hieroglyphs. We pause at Fort Julien, where the Stone was found fortuitously by a French officer embedded in the wall, during works to strengthen the defences. We take a short boat trip on the Nile and visit the Amasili House museum, showcasing the distinctive Delta-style Islamic mansion architecture.
Back in Alexandria, we investigate the extraordinary Catacombs of Kom es-Shoqafa, the underground rock-hewn necropolis from the Roman period.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, originally built in the 3rd century BC, was destroyed by an earthquake in the early 14th century. The Qaitbay Fort was built by the Mamluk Sultan Qaitbay on the remains of the Lighthouse in the 15th century and later expanded by the Ottomans, becoming an important stronghold on the Mediterranean coast. We spend the morning wandering through the recently restored Fort, including the informative exhibition on the underwater archaeological site of the ancient lighthouse ruins.
We board the overnight sleeper train to take us to the southern city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. We cover the distance of more than 1,000 km in around 17 hours..
We arrive in Aswan around midday and have a short transfer to our hotel with rooms arranged around an attractive garden. After lunch and a rest, we visit the excellent Nubian Museum, dedicated to the historic region situated along the Nile, south of Aswan.
As we follow the Nile further south, we cross the Aswan Dam, one of the world’s largest. Built following the 1952 Egyptian revolution, this monumental undertaking created Lake Nasser to control the annual flooding, provide water for irrigation and generate hydroelectricity. Our destination is the Abu Simbel Sun Temple, with four giant statues of the New Kingdom pharaoh Ramses II, carved out of the red sandstone cliff. The temple and the associated smaller temples were relocated, in its entirety, in 1968 to higher ground as part of a UNESCO led project to salvage Nubian monuments from being submerged by Lake Nasser.
An early start is required for this full day trip. The drive takes approx. 3.5 hrs each way. As we return to the same hotel in Aswan, it is also possible to spend a relaxing day in Aswan.
Our walking tour of Aswan commences with a visit to the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral of Archangel Michael, consecrated in 2006 and noted for its fine wood carving decorations. We take a short ferry crossing to the Elephantine Island, so named from the Greek translation of the ancient Egyptian ‘abu’ meaning elephant or ivory, and continue our exploration in the traditional Nubian village of Koti.
We board our private dahabiya, a shallow two-masted wooden boat, and our home for the next three nights. We meet the crew and lunch is served on the top deck as we set off down the Nile.
In Daraw, we inspect the stables and learn how camels are brought from Sudan and traded by their owners. Later, we shop at the colourful village market for ingredients requested by the dahabiya chef. Further down the river, on the east bank, we visit the Kom Ombo Temple, distinguished by its double dedication to the crocodile-headed god Sobek, the source of the Nile’s fertility, and the falcon-headed god, Horus. In the afternoon, we take a short walk in the Gebel El Silsila historic sandstone quarry, the source of building material for many of the most famous temples in Luxor.
DAY 9
B, L, D included
Bisaw - Edfu
We spend the morning on the island of Bisaw, home to about 350 people. We participate in breadmaking and have breakfast on the rooftop of a family home. Later we walk through an orchard of mangos, bananas and date palms and join a fishing expedition in small rowing boats. We return to our dahabiya and continue to Edfu Temple, one of the best-preserved temples in Egypt, dedicated to Horus, a significant deity with many functions and forms.
We say goodbye to the crew and disembark from our dahabiya in Esna. We walk through the historic centre. The partly excavated Temple of Khnum (the god responsible for regulating the annual inundation of the Nile) stands next to the 11th century Minaret/Lighthouse and the recently restored Ottoman-era caravanserai where goods from Arabia, India, the Levant and Europe were once traded.
We continue by road (1 hr) to Luxor, the New Kingdom’s capital of Thebes, and discover a mindboggling concentration of archaeological remains. Our first stop is Karnak Temple, a vast complex primarily dedicated to Amun, the patron deity of the New Kingdom, built over centuries with a seemingly unlimited budget.
We stay in a small charming hotel on the west bank for 2 nights.
Today we remain on the west bank to investigate selected sites of the Theban Necropolis. We start with Deir el-Bahri, the mighty female pharaoh Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple, built spectacularly into a cliff. The secretive Valley of the Kings was reserved, as the name suggests, for rock-cut tombs of the Pharaohs. Sixty-five have been excavated to date, many with long underground shafts decorated with vivid paintings of the afterlife. Only ten tombs are open to visitors by rotation, and we explore the three most interesting of those open. In the afternoon, we wander through Medinet Habu, Ramses III’s Mortuary Temple, a well preserved and less frequented monument.
DAY 12
B, L, D included
Cairo
We travel to Cairo by road. It will take 7 to 8 hours, including a few short comfort stops: a good time to catch up on your favourite podcast, audio book or an opera. In Cairo, we will stay in the cosmopolitan, relaxed Zamalek district for 2 nights.
DAY 13
B, L, D included
Giza - GEM and the Pyramids
The new sleek Grand Egyptian Museum is situated in Giza and displays many archaeological treasures from different eras of the Ancient Egypt civilisation. We have a guided tour of the highlights, the Tutankhamun Halls amongst them. Moving to another star sight, we visit the Pyramids of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the only one still standing. We see the Great Pyramid of Cheops and the Sphinx and have an opportunity to contemplate the many unanswered questions surrounding these extraordinary buildings.
We head into the Fayoum Oasis in the Western Desert, where water is supplied by canals from the Nile and a natural lake is formed from a depression in the terrain. On our jeep safari, we soon realise the desert is far from empty. In the mountains on the northern shore of Lake Qarun, we discover remains of an ancient pharaonic road built of basalt from the nearby quarry; a 7th century cave monastery; a temple which may be dated to the Old Kingdom and a trading post founded in 3rd century BC, once a port on the lake. On the south side of the lake, we walk through the village of Tunis, known for its pottery, a tradition established relatively recently by an enterprising and socially minded expatriate. We spend the night in a village guesthouse, set in well-tended gardens.
We continue our jeep safari by driving to the remote UNESCO World Heritage paleontological site of Wadi Al Hitan (Valley of the Whales), the home to early whale fossils. The museum and walking trail blend into the surrounding rock formations, created by wind and water erosion over millennia. In the afternoon, we return to Cairo for our final night in the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, Arab world and the Middle East.
Today we focus on architectural masterpieces of Islamic Cairo. The Saladin Citadel sits on a promontory and is named after its infamous founder. It continued to be developed for military use by the Mamluks, Ottomans and the British and Egyptian Armies until it was proclaimed a historic monument and opened to the public in the 1980s. Further north, we enter the walled city of al-Qahira through one of the remaining 11th century gates, Bab al-Futuh, and follow along the main avenue, known as al-Muizz Street.
Our journey through Egypt concludes with a transfer to Cairo airport for late afternoon flights home.
Please note that the double for single room supplement is imposed by the hotels and not by Kudu Travel. If you are willing to share but no other suitable guest books on the trip, we regret that the supplement will be payable.
Private dahabiya charter on the Nile, as described
On Kudu trips, you will only need money for postcards, presents to take home, the odd G & T or an irresistible ice cream. Festival and opera tickets, museum and gallery entrances, National Park fees, all meals (with a very few exceptions specified in individual itineraries), wine with lunch and dinner, access to specialist books carried by the guides, gratuities for porters and hotel and restaurant staff, boat rides, train trips, internal flights, wine tastings, 4WDs with drivers, the services of skilled local guides and trackers etc are ALL INCLUDED in the cost of your holiday.
We are confident that, like previous very satisfied guests, you will discover that our tours give you excellent value for money.
1 night at Cairo Airport ∙ 2 nights in Alexandria ∙ 1 night on a sleeper train ∙ 2 nights in Aswan ∙ 3 nights on a privately chartered dahabiya ∙ 3 non-consecutive nights in Cairo ∙ 1 night in Tunis village
Visa and Health Requirements
Most visitors require a visa for entry to Egypt and the simplest way to obtain a tourist visa is to apply online on https://visa2egypt.gov.eg/ ahead of travel. The cost starts from $25.
A Yellow Fever vaccination certificate is not required when arriving from Europe or the USA. Immunisation/boosters against Hepatitis A, Tetanus, Typhoid and Polio are recommended. Please consult your doctor in good time before departure.
You may wish to check the advice given to travellers by the Department of Health (www.dh.gov.uk/travellers) and the FCO (https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice).
Insurance
It is essential, and a condition of booking, that you protect yourself with a suitable travel insurance policy as soon as you book a trip. Follow this link for a quote for a policy available to UK residents.
If you are already insured or a non-UK resident, please inform us of your policy at the time of booking.
Size of party
This trip will run with a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 14 guests.
