On a Nile Cruise with Alison Rice - Need To Know
Posted On
29.02.08
Most cruises sail between Luxor and Aswan and take three nights, four days. Some boats linger longer, stop at the lesser-known temples and make a week of the trip. Add-ons include a few days in Cairo to see the pyramids, the treasures in the museum and to enjoy some of the worst traffic in the world, and chill-out hotel breaks in Luxor or Aswan. There’s an overnight train between Cairo and Luxor.
A price war rages between hot air balloon operators in Luxor. Be careful about which company you choose for your Nile High Club experience. The ones offering the lower prices may not have very experienced pilots or adequate insurance for the number of passengers they carry. A balloon flight at dawn over the Valley of the Kings at Luxor is pretty special even when crammed in your wicker basket with a dozen or so others. Watching the locals wake up in their open air rooftop beds is as memorable as looking down on the ‘vast and trunkless legs of stone’ of Ozymandias – the great statue of Rameses the Great, the 19th-dynasty Pharaoh who stars in many of the temple stories you’ll see carved in stone.
Morning tours of the temples and tombs set off very early to avoid the heat of the day.
A day’s trip from Aswan to Abu Simbel can involve a 2.30 am wake-up call and six hours on a bus (it’s a three-hour journey). Even if you choose to fly, the flights leave early so day trippers don’t suffer in the midday heat. But it’s worth the early start to see this magnificent temple and UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the 1960s it was moved stone by stone to save it from drowning when the Aswan Dam was built.
Some of the content of the magazine refers to flights or prices from the UK. At Travel Counsellors Ireland we can source flights from Ireland and provide full quotes in Euros. Please call me for latest availability and prices.
