This 11 day Egypt Christmas tour spends the holidays in three very different Egypts: the Pyramids and the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, three nights sailing the Nile from Aswan to Luxor past temples that have stood for two thousand years, and then three slow nights on the Red Sea in Hurghada. It runs over Christmas and New Year as a small group of no more than 16, with licensed Egyptologist guides at every site and both domestic flights included.
Everything between the airport and the beach is arranged for you: meet-and-assist inside the arrivals hall, guided touring with entrance fees, full board on the cruise and all-inclusive in Hurghada, so the only decisions left are which optional trips to add.
Most Christmas trips to Egypt race from the cruise to the airport. This one doesn’t. After the Valley of the Kings you drive across the Eastern Desert to the Red Sea and stay three nights, which gives you two full days with nothing scheduled: snorkelling over the reefs, a boat to Giftun Island, or simply a sunbed after a week of temples. That third night is what separates it from our 10 day Egypt Christmas tour, which follows the same Cairo and Nile cruise route but allows only one full beach day.
The touring half is built around the best of the classic route. In Cairo you see the Giza Pyramids, the Sphinx and the complete Tutankhamun collection at the Grand Egyptian Museum, then Coptic Cairo, the Citadel and the bazaar. On the Nile you visit Philae, Kom Ombo, Edfu, Karnak, Luxor Temple and the Valley of the Kings, with Abu Simbel as an optional early-morning trip from Aswan.
Welcome to Egypt. As you step off the plane, your Egypt Best Vacations representative meets you inside the arrivals terminal with a signboard bearing your name and walks you through the visa and passport formalities, so you skip the guesswork at the busiest airport in Africa.
Your private air-conditioned car takes you to your hotel, about 45 minutes to an hour depending on traffic and where you stay. On the way, your representative hands over your travel documents and goes through the plan for the next ten days, including the time of tomorrow’s pickup.
Egyptologist’s note: If you arrive late at night, don’t worry about missing anything: the touring starts the next morning, so you only need a good night’s sleep.
Meals Plan: No Meals Included
Your Egyptologist picks you up around 8:00 a.m to Giza Plateau. Begin at the Great Pyramid of Khufu, built around 2560 BC from some 2.3 million stone blocks and originally 146 metres tall, the tallest building on Earth for nearly four thousand years. Beside it stand the pyramid of Khafre, which still keeps part of its smooth limestone casing at the top, and the smaller pyramid of Menkaure, once sheathed in red granite.
Drive up to the panoramic viewpoint, where all nine pyramids line up against the desert for the classic photograph, then walk down to the Great Sphinx, carved straight out of the bedrock of the plateau and about 73 metres long. Next to it, the Valley Temple of Khafre, built of huge granite blocks fitted without mortar, is where the king’s body was received before burial.
After lunch, a five-minute drive brings you to the Grand Egyptian Museum. Climb the Grand Staircase, lined with colossal statues of kings spanning three thousand years, to windows that frame the pyramids. Then spend unhurried time with the full Tutankhamun collection, more than 5,000 objects displayed together for the first time since Howard Carter opened the tomb in 1922, from the golden mask to his chariots, beds and sandals. End with Khufu’s Solar Boat, a 43-metre cedar vessel buried beside his pyramid 4,500 years ago. Back at your hotel around 5:00 p.m.
Egyptologist’s note: Entry inside the Great Pyramid is a separate ticket. The climb up the Grand Gallery to the King’s Chamber is steep and narrow, so skip it if you dislike enclosed spaces; the outside of the pyramid is just as impressive.
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
Start the day inside the walls of the Roman fortress of Babylon, the heart of Coptic Cairo. The Hanging Church takes its name from being built over the fortress gatehouse, so its nave seems to hang above the old passage; inside are cedar and ivory screens and some of the finest Coptic icons in the city. A short walk away, the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus stands over the crypt where tradition says the Holy Family rested during their flight into Egypt. Nearby, the Ben Ezra Synagogue is where the Cairo Geniza was found, a store of some 300,000 manuscript fragments that transformed the study of medieval Jewish life.
Drive up to the Citadel of Saladin, begun in 1176 to defend Cairo against the Crusaders and the seat of Egypt’s rulers for almost 700 years. Its skyline is crowned by the Alabaster Mosque of Muhammad Ali, built between 1830 and 1848 in the Ottoman style, with walls faced in alabaster and a view from the terrace across the minarets of the city to the pyramids on a clear day.
After lunch, lose yourself in Khan el-Khalili, Cairo’s great bazaar since the 14th century, among lanterns, spices, silver and perfume. Your guide shows you how to bargain, and you can stop for mint tea at a historic café before walking a stretch of Al-Muizz Street, lined with medieval mosques and palaces.
Egyptologist’s note: Copts celebrate Christmas on 7 January, so in late December you will see the churches of Coptic Cairo dressed for the coming feast while the hotels celebrate on 25 December. It’s a rare chance to see both calendars at once.
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
An early transfer to Cairo Airport for the flight south to Aswan, about 1 hour 20 minutes. Your Aswan guide meets you outside the arrival and the touring begins straight away.
First the Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970, which ended the Nile’s yearly flood and created Lake Nasser, one of the largest man-made lakes in the world, stretching some 500 kilometres into Sudan. A short motorboat ride takes you to Philae Temple, the sanctuary of the goddess Isis, now on Agilkia Island. When the High Dam threatened to drown it, UNESCO dismantled the temple stone by stone between 1972 and 1980 and rebuilt it on higher ground. Look for the graceful Kiosk of Trajan on the water’s edge, and inside the temple for the last known hieroglyphic inscription, carved in AD 394.
Then the ancient granite quarries, where the Unfinished Obelisk still lies where it cracked: had it been raised, it would have stood about 42 metres high and weighed over a thousand tonnes, the largest obelisk ever attempted. Board your ship for lunch and settle into your cabin.
Egyptologist’s note: The ship stays moored in Aswan tonight, so if you have the energy, the optional Sound and Light show at Philae is a beautiful way to see the temple again after dark.
Optional tour: Tour to Nubian Village in Aswan
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Two ways to spend the morning. Stay on board and enjoy a slow breakfast as Aswan wakes up, or join the optional trip to Abu Simbel. That means a 4:00 a.m. start for the drive of about three and a half hours through the Nubian desert to the two great rock-cut temples of Ramesses II and his queen Nefertari. The four seated colossi of the king, each about 20 metres high, guard a temple cut 60 metres into the mountain. Between 1964 and 1968 both temples were cut into blocks and lifted 65 metres up the cliff to save them from Lake Nasser. You are back on board for lunch before the ship sails.
In the afternoon the ship sails north to Kom Ombo, where a temple on a bend of the river is unique in Egypt: it is a double temple, perfectly symmetrical, with one side for Sobek, the crocodile god, and the other for Haroeris, Horus the Elder. Look for the relief of surgical instruments and the temple calendar carved on its walls. Next door, the Crocodile Museum displays mummified crocodiles found in the local cemetery.
Back on board, the ship continues to Edfu, where it moors for the night.
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Ride a horse-drawn carriage through the town to the Temple of Horus at Edfu, built under the Ptolemies between 237 and 57 BC and the most complete temple surviving from ancient Egypt. Its pylon gateway rises 36 metres, a granite falcon of Horus guards the entrance, and the walls tell the story of Horus’s battle with his uncle Seth for the throne of Egypt, almost like a play carved in stone.
Back on board, the ship sails north and passes through the lock at Esna, where the river level changes by several metres. It’s worth being on deck to watch, as local traders row up alongside the ship to sell tablecloths and scarves, throwing them up to the passengers.
On reaching Luxor, visit Karnak, the largest religious complex ever built at around 100 hectares, added to by pharaohs over some 2,000 years. Walk through the Great Hypostyle Hall, a forest of 134 giant columns, past Hatshepsut’s obelisk to the sacred lake. Then Luxor Temple, built mainly by Amenhotep III and Ramesses II, with the Avenue of Sphinxes that once ran nearly three kilometres to Karnak. Seen at dusk, when the floodlights come on, it is one of the most atmospheric sights in Egypt.
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
If you’d like to start the day in the air, the optional hot-air balloon flight leaves at dawn (pickup around 5:00 a.m.) and drifts over the temples and fields of the West Bank as the sun comes up.
After breakfast, disembark and cross to the West Bank. The Valley of the Kings holds more than sixty royal tombs cut deep into the hills, and your ticket includes three of them, chosen on the day from those that are open, with walls still bright with scenes from the books of the afterlife. Separate tickets open the tombs of Tutankhamun, Seti I and Ramesses VI.
Next, the terraced temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, set against the cliffs. Hatshepsut began as regent for Thutmose III and went on to rule as a crowned king in full pharaonic regalia, with his regnal years still running alongside hers. Her temple’s reliefs show the famous trading expedition to the Land of Punt. On the way back, stop at the Colossi of Memnon, two 18-metre statues of Amenhotep III that once guarded his vast mortuary temple.
After lunch, your private car takes you east across the desert and along the Red Sea coast to Hurghada, about four hours. Check in to your all-inclusive resort in time for dinner by the sea.
Optional tour: Sunrise Hot Air Balloon over Luxor
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
After a week of temples, a day with nothing on the schedule. The Red Sea off Hurghada is one of the best places in the world for coral reefs, and the water stays around 23 °C in late December, warm enough to snorkel.
If you’d like to get out on the water, we can book an optional boat trip to Giftun Island, a protected marine park with white-sand beaches and reefs full of fish, or a day of diving for certified and first-time divers. A glass-bottom boat or a semi-submarine shows you the reef without getting wet. For something different, a late-afternoon quad-bike safari into the desert ends with sunset and tea at a Bedouin camp.
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
A second free day to enjoy the beach and the pool, or to fit in the trip you didn’t do yesterday. If you’d like to see a little more of the coast, the Hurghada Marina is lively in the evening with cafés and restaurants on the water, and the lagoon town of El Gouna is about 30 minutes up the coast.
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Enjoy a last morning by the sea and lunch at the resort, then transfer to Hurghada Airport for the flight to Cairo, about one hour. You are met on arrival and taken to your hotel for the final night.
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
After breakfast, your private transfer takes you to Cairo International Airport. We time the pickup so that you arrive three hours before your international flight, and your representative helps you through to check-in.
Meals Plan: Breakfast Only
If you have fewer days, the 10 day Egypt Christmas tour follows the same route with two nights in Hurghada, the 9 day Egypt Christmas tour adds a longer four-night cruise from Luxor, and the 8 day Egypt Christmas tour combines Cairo with a three-night cruise and no beach stay. For the Pyramids and the Red Sea without the Nile, see the 7 day Cairo and Hurghada Christmas tour. All our holiday trips are listed on the Egypt Christmas tours page.
