Christmas in Egypt trades grey skies for 20°C sunshine, and this four-day Abu Simbel Christmas tour puts three of the country’s greatest monuments into one short holiday: the Pyramids of Giza, the island temple of Philae, and the colossi Ramses II cut into a Nubian cliff.
You begin in Cairo on the Giza Plateau, with the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx, timed to reach the plateau before the December coach parties thicken. If your arrival falls on 24 December, your Christmas Eve gala dinner is served at your hotel that evening — already inside your quoted price, not added at reception. The next morning you fly south to Aswan, the warmest and gentlest of Egypt’s classic cities.
The third day is the reason people book this itinerary rather than a Cairo-only one. You leave Aswan before dawn and drive south through the Western Desert to Abu Simbel, where the four seated colossi of Ramses II and the smaller temple he raised for Nefertari stand as they have for three thousand years — though 65 metres higher up the cliff than they were, moved block by block between 1964 and 1968 to save them from the rising water of Lake Nasser. Your final day returns to Cairo for the Grand Egyptian Museum, Saladin’s Citadel and the spice lanes of Khan El Khalili.
Everything on this tour is private. Qualified Egyptologist tour guides, one driver, one vehicle, your own pace — no fixed departure list and nobody else’s schedule. Domestic flights, hotels and entrance fees are all in the price.
Travelling over New Year rather than Christmas? See our Egypt New Year tours for itineraries built around 31 December.
Your Egypt Best Vacations representative meets you inside the arrivals terminal at Cairo International Airport, holding a signboard with your name, and stays with you through visa and passport formalities. Your Egyptologist and private driver are waiting at the car.
You go straight to the Giza Plateau. Your guide takes you through the Great Pyramids — how they were built, who built them, and why the alien theories collapse the moment you look at the workers’ village and the quarry marks. You will see the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure, and the panoramic point where all three line up. Then down to the Sphinx and its Valley Temple, where the causeway and the granite casing survive.
Lunch at a local restaurant. Afterwards you check into your Cairo hotel. If today is 24 December, your Christmas Eve gala dinner is served at the hotel this evening and is already covered by your booking.
Meals: Lunch | Overnight: Cairo
Breakfast at the hotel, then a transfer to Cairo airport for your morning flight to Aswan. Your Aswan guide meets you on arrival.
You start at the Aswan High Dam, built between 1960 and 1970, which ended the annual Nile flood, generates a large share of Egypt’s electricity, and created Lake Nasser — the same lake that forced the rescue of Abu Simbel, which you will see tomorrow.
Then to Philae Temple, reached by motorboat. The temple stands today on Agilkia Island, not its original site: like Abu Simbel, it was dismantled and rebuilt on higher ground. It is dedicated to Isis, goddess of magic, healing and motherhood, and it was one of the last places in Egypt where the old religion was still practised.
Your last stop is the Unfinished Obelisk, still lying in its granite quarry. Had it been finished it would have been the largest ever raised; a crack in the stone stopped the work, and what was left behind is the clearest surviving evidence of how obelisks were cut.
Lunch at a local restaurant. Then to your Aswan hotel. An early night is worth it — tomorrow starts before dawn.
Optional add-ons today: a Nubian village visit
Meals: Breakfast & Lunch | Overnight: Aswan
An early start. You leave Aswan before sunrise and drive roughly three hours south through the Western Desert, arriving at Abu Simbel while the light is still low and the site is at its quietest. Breakfast is packed from the hotel.
Nothing prepares you for the scale. Four seated colossi of Ramses II, each around twenty metres high, front the Great Temple, carved directly into the sandstone cliff and aligned so that twice a year the rising sun reaches the sanctuary at the very back. Beside it stands the smaller temple Ramses built for Nefertari, where — unusually for Egypt — the queen is shown the same height as the king.
Your guide will also show you the seam. Between 1964 and 1968 the entire complex was cut into more than a thousand blocks and reassembled 65 metres higher and 200 metres back from the water, inside an artificial mountain built to hold it. Once you know where to look, you can see the joins.
You drive back to Aswan, lunch at a local restaurant, and take your afternoon flight to Cairo. Transfer to your Cairo hotel for the night.
Meals: Breakfast & Lunch | Overnight: Cairo
Breakfast, then your last day in Cairo. You begin at the Grand Egyptian Museum, the largest archaeological museum in the world and now home to the complete Tutankhamun collection — more than five thousand objects shown together for the first time, the golden mask among them.
From there to the Citadel of Saladin, begun in 1176 on the Muqattam spur, and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali inside it — the alabaster mosque, Ottoman in plan, with the best view over Cairo on a clear December morning.
Lunch at a local restaurant. Then Khan El Khalili, the great mediaeval bazaar, for cotton, spice, silver and coffee at El Fishawy. Your guide will show you what things should cost before you start haggling.
Transfer to Cairo International Airport for your departure flight. If you are staying on for New Year, tell us at the enquiry stage and we will extend the itinerary rather than sell you a second trip.
Meals: Breakfast & Lunch
| Accommodation | Triple room | Twin / double | Single |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold≈ 3.5★ Western equivalent | $1,190 | $1,260 | $2,145 |
| Platinum≈ 4★ Western equivalent | $1,400 | $1,550 | $2,635 |
| Diamond≈ 4.5★ Western equivalent | $1,650 | $1,850 | $3,145 |
| Age | Pays | Gold | Platinum | Diamond |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0–2 years | 30% of adult | $378 | $465 | $555 |
| 3–5 years | 40% of adult | $504 | $620 | $740 |
| 6–11 years | 50% of adult | $630 | $775 | $925 |
| 12+ years | 100% of adult | $1,260 | $1,550 | $1,850 |
