The wind on the Nile blows from the north. The current runs to the north. So a boat heading south sails, and a boat heading north drifts — and our 5 days 4 nights Dahabiya Nile cruise from Luxor to Aswan is the southbound one. You spend more of this route under canvas than on any other cruise we run.
The ancient Egyptians built the distinction into their writing. The hieroglyph for travelling south is a boat with its sail raised; the sign for travelling north is a boat with the sail down. Upstream to Aswan is the direction a dahabiya was made for.
It is also the fullest of our short dahabiya itineraries. Four nights aboard buys you two unhurried days in Luxor before you cast off — the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut’s terraces and the Colossi of Memnon on the West Bank, then Karnak and Luxor Temple on the East — followed by Edfu, Kom Ombo, and a full closing day in Aswan.
A Nile cruise ship carries between 100 and 150 guests. A dahabiya carries between 16 and 28 guests, depending on how many cabins she has, and our own group is capped at 16. She moors at sandbanks and islands rather than at concrete quays, and the rhythm of the day is set by the wind rather than a timetable.
At Edfu you leave the boat by horse and carriage for the Temple of Horus — the most completely preserved temple in Egypt, buried in silt for centuries, which is why its roof and its inner chambers survived when others lost theirs. At Kom Ombo you find the only temple in Egypt built as a true double: two entrances, two halls, two sanctuaries, one side for Sobek the crocodile god and one for Haroeris. The Crocodile Museum beside it holds the mummified crocodiles recovered from the site.
Aswan closes the journey. The High Dam that ended the annual flood and created Lake Nasser; the Unfinished Obelisk, still lying where it cracked in the granite quarry; and Philae, the temple of Isis, lifted block by block onto Agilkia Island when the water rose.
Please keep in mind that slight changes in the itinerary might occur due to circumstances beyond our control.
Your guide meets you outside the arrivals terminal at Luxor airport or the railway station. You begin on the West Bank, in the Valley of the Kings, where the New Kingdom pharaohs hid their tombs in a desert wadi rather than announce them with pyramids. Your guide picks the three strongest tombs open on the day — which ones are open rotates, and the choice matters.
Then Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari, rising in three terraces against the cliff. She ruled as pharaoh for roughly two decades, and the temple was reused as a Coptic monastery centuries later, which is where the modern name comes from. The Colossi of Memnon on the way back — all that stands above ground of Amenhotep III’s own mortuary temple.
Board your dahabiya and settle in. Overnight moored at Luxor.
Meals: lunch and dinner
Breakfast on deck, then across to the East Bank. Karnak first: thirty pharaohs building on one site across roughly two thousand years, the largest religious complex ever raised. Then Luxor Temple, begun by Amenhotep III, extended by Ramses II, and added to by Tutankhamun, Horemheb and Alexander the Great in turn — joined to Karnak by the Avenue of Sphinxes.
Back aboard, and the sailing begins. You cast off south through the Esna Lock and moor at an island for the night.
Optional: sunrise hot air balloon over the West Bank.
Meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner
Sailing south through the morning, lunch served under way. At Edfu a horse and carriage takes you up through the town to the Temple of Horus — built between 237 and 57 BC and buried in silt for centuries, which is why its roof, its inner chambers and its inscriptions survived. The black granite falcon still stands at the gate.
Carriage back to the boat, then on to Al Ramady Island for the night.
Meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner
Breakfast, then south to Kom Ombo, which sits right on the bank — one of the few temples you step off the boat and into. It is the only temple in Egypt built as a true double: two entrances, two hypostyle halls, two sanctuaries, one side for Sobek the crocodile god and one for Haroeris, Horus the Elder. Look for the relief of surgical instruments, one of the earliest medical images to survive from the ancient world.
A short walk away, the Crocodile Museum holds the mummified crocodiles once sacred to Sobek, along with the coffins and votive objects found with them.
Back aboard for the final leg south to Aswan.
Meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner
Breakfast, then your Aswan day. The High Dam, built through the 1960s to end the annual flood and power the country — and, in doing so, creating Lake Nasser and forcing the rescue of Philae and Abu Simbel. Then Philae itself, reached by a short boat ride across to Agilkia Island: the temple of Isis, known as the Pearl of Egypt, and the last place in the ancient world where the old religion was still practiced. You finish at the Unfinished Obelisk, still lying where it cracked in the granite quarry; at nearly 42 metres it would have been the largest ever cut, and the tool marks around it show exactly how the work was done.
Transfer to Aswan airport, the railway station or your Aswan hotel.
Optional: Abu Simbel by road. It means a pre-dawn start, so tell us in advance if you want it added.
Meals: breakfast
