M/S Magic I

Meet and assist at Aswan City (airport or train station or hotel). Transfer to your Nile cruise boat via private air-conditioned vehicle. Embarkation. Lunch on board. Enjoy visiting the High Dam of Aswan, Egypt's modern example of construction on a monumental scale. The controversial Aswan High Dam contains 18 times the amount of material used in the Great Pyramid of Khufu and created Lake Nasser, the world's largest artificial lake.

Transfer to visit the Unfinished Obelisk which still lies in its granite bed in the quarry, left behind because of a severe flaw in the stone. Enjoy a tour to the Temple of Isis on the island of Philae which was famous during the Greco-Roman period. There you can see, in front of the first pylon, two granite lions. On the walls of the temple of Philae were inscribed the latest hieroglyphic and demotic inscriptions. Dinner and overnight on board.

Meals: Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast on board. Tour to the double temple of the Hellenistic period on the eastern bank, the Temple of Kom Ombo. This unique construction is an architectonic conflation of two temples in one building. Lunch on board. Sail to Edfu.

Enjoy a visit to the Temple of the falcon god Horus at Edfu which is the best preserved example among the Greco-Roman temples of Egypt. It is also the repository of the most detailed legacy on matters of cult and temple function. Sail to Luxor. Dinner and overnight on board.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast on board. Magnificent visit to the Valley of the Kings, the most famous concentration of royal tombs in Ancient Egypt. Disappointed by the failure of the pyramids to protect their royal owners from robbery and desecration, the kings of the New Kingdom decided to adopt a more secure mode of burial. Instead of the pyramid, they opted for deep, rock-cut galleries and halls.

Enjoy a visit to Deir el-Bahari, Steep cliffs in the shape of a horseshoe form a natural background to two monumental buildings standing side by side, each belonging to a different period. The earlier one, on the left, was built by King Nebhepetre Mentuhotep (11th Dynasty), as a combined tomb and funerary monument. More than 500 years later, the female pharaoh Hatshepsut (18th Dynasty), whose tomb is situated in the Valley of the Kings, used the same site for the construction of her funerary temple.

Pay a tour to the Colossi of Memnon. The first monument one encounters on a visit to the west bank of Luxor is the site of the funerary temple of Amenhotep III (18th Dynasty).

The temple itself has all but completely disappeared, but the colossal twin statues of the king, which once stood proudly in front of the entrance to the temple, are still there to greet the visitor. Lunch on board.

Transfer to visit the Luxor Temple, most important monument, and most sacred of sites. It was conceived as a remote southern annex to the temple of Karnak, at a distance of about 3 kilometres from it.

Hence, it faces the Karnak Temple, and was connected to it by a long processional avenue, flanked by rows of sphinxes on either side. Many of those sphinxes have been unearthed and guard the entrance to the temple, but more still lie buried beneath the buildings of modern Luxor. Enjoy a wonderful tour to Karnak Temple.

Three temples of Egypt claimed supremacy over all the others: the Temple of Ptah at Memphis, the Temple of Re-Atum at Heliopolis and the Temple of Amon-Re at Karnak. However, only one has been spared the ravages of time to amaze the visitor even today, 4,000 years after its initial stage of building – the Temple of Karnak.

The Temple of Amon-Re was the melting pot of religion and politics. Its monumental courts and halls witnessed the most critical events of Egyptian history. Dinner and overnight on board.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast on board. Disembarkation. Transfer by private air-conditioned vehicle to (airport or train station or hotel) in Luxor. End of our services.

Meals: Breakfast