12-Day Cairo, Alexandria, Nile Cruise & Bahariya Oasis Tour

A representative meets you in the arrivals hall at Cairo International Airport, holding a sign with your name, and walks you to a private, air-conditioned car. After a long flight, that means no taxi negotiations and no guessing at routes; your driver handles the whole trip into the city while you watch Cairo's sprawl of overpasses, minarets, and rooftops roll by.

The rest of the day is unscheduled. Check in, nap, shower, and get your bearings. If you arrive early and feel restless, your hotel concierge or guide can suggest a gentle first outing close by, but nothing is planned, so you can recover at your own pace.

Your guide confirms the Day 2 pickup time either at the airport or in a short welcome call that evening. No meals are included today.

After breakfast your guide drives you to the Giza Plateau, where the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure have stood for some 4,500 years. Your Egyptologist explains how the blocks were quarried, moved, and aligned, and why these tombs mattered so much to the kings who built them. Near the top of Khafre's pyramid, look for the patch of original smooth casing stones, a clue to how all three once looked. Below them waits the Great Sphinx, a lion's body with a king's face, carved from a single limestone outcrop.

You continue to the Grand Egyptian Museum on the edge of the plateau. Its Grand Staircase is lined with colossal statues, and its Tutankhamun galleries display the young king's complete burial treasure together. Lunch is at a local restaurant, and you return to your hotel by evening to rest before an early flight.

An early transfer brings you to Cairo Airport for a morning flight to Luxor. Your Luxor-based guide meets you on arrival and goes straight to the East Bank.

At Karnak, the largest religious complex of the ancient world, generations of pharaohs added gateways, courts, and obelisks over two millennia. You enter along an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes and walk into the Hypostyle Hall, a forest of 134 giant columns whose carvings still hold flecks of ancient color.

Next is Luxor Temple, right on the corniche in the heart of town, with colossal statues of Ramesses II at its entrance and a graceful colonnade beyond. After lunch at a local restaurant you transfer to the dock and board your Nile cruise ship. The ship stays in Luxor overnight, leaving the afternoon free to settle into your cabin and relax on deck. Dinner is served on board.

After breakfast on board you cross to the West Bank. In the Valley of the Kings, New Kingdom pharaohs, Tutankhamun among them, were buried in tombs cut deep into the hillsides, their walls painted with guides to the underworld. Standard entry covers three tombs; Tutankhamun's tomb is an optional extra ticket that is not included.

You continue to the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, a clean-lined, terraced temple set against golden cliffs for the woman who ruled Egypt as pharaoh for about two decades. A photo stop at the Colossi of Memnon, two weathered seated statues of Amenhotep III, follows.

Back on the ship, lunch is served as you set sail south toward Edfu. Spend the afternoon on the sun deck watching fishermen, sugarcane fields, and village life along the banks. Dinner is served on board.

After breakfast you disembark at Edfu, where a short horse-drawn carriage or tuk-tuk ride takes you to the Temple of Horus, one of the best-preserved temples in Egypt. Completed in the Ptolemaic era, it still has its roof, its massive pylon, and a dark inner sanctuary, and your guide reads its reliefs with you, including scenes of Horus defeating Seth. Note that the carriage at Edfu is not included.

Lunch is served on board as the ship sails on to Kom Ombo. In the afternoon you visit its double temple, shared by Sobek, the crocodile god, and Haroeris, a form of Horus, with matching halls and sanctuaries side by side. The adjoining Crocodile Museum displays mummified crocodiles once worshipped at the site. You return to the ship for dinner as it continues south to Aswan overnight.

With the ship now docked in Aswan, you start after breakfast at the Aswan High Dam, the 20th-century barrier that tamed the Nile flood and created Lake Nasser, one of the largest artificial lakes on earth.

A short motorboat ride carries you to Philae Temple, sacred to the goddess Isis. Threatened by rising water, it was moved stone by stone to higher ground on Agilkia Island in a UNESCO-led rescue, and today it rises straight from the water like a set piece.

After lunch you visit the Unfinished Obelisk, still attached to the bedrock of its ancient quarry. A crack ended the work, and the tool marks left behind show how stoneworkers attacked solid granite. Time permitting, you can add an optional felucca sail around Elephantine Island before dinner on board and a night docked in Aswan.

After breakfast you check out of your cabin and transfer to Aswan Airport for a morning flight back to Cairo. On arrival you are met and driven privately to your hotel.

The rest of the day is free, and after four days of temples it is a welcome pause. You might rest by the pool, revisit a neighborhood you liked, or do some shopping. Zamalek, the island district in the Nile, suits an easy afternoon of cafés, bookshops, and riverside walks, while the area around Tahrir Square gives you a sense of the city's modern center.

Keep the evening easy. The next morning starts early with the drive to Alexandria, so this is a good moment to charge cameras, wash a few clothes, and get a full night's sleep. Only breakfast is included today.

After an early breakfast you drive north to Alexandria, about two and a half to three hours on the desert road, arriving by mid-morning in the city Alexander the Great founded in 331 BC.

Your Alexandria-based guide begins below ground at the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa, a Roman-era necropolis where Egyptian, Greek, and Roman funerary styles merge in carved tombs and statues. Next is Pompey's Pillar, a soaring red granite column among the ruins of the Serapeum temple.

After a seafood lunch overlooking the Mediterranean, you visit the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the striking modern successor to the ancient Library of Alexandria, and finish at the 15th-century Qaitbay Citadel, built on the site of the Pharos lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. You drive back in the early evening and reach your Cairo hotel at night.

After breakfast you drive up to the Cairo Citadel, the fortress Salah al-Din began in the 12th century to defend the city. Its crown is the 19th-century Mohamed Ali Alabaster Mosque, whose slender minarets are visible across Cairo; from its terrace you can see the pyramids on a clear day.

From there you head to Old Cairo, the city's oldest quarter, built around the remains of the Roman fortress of Babylon. The Hanging Church, one of Egypt's oldest Coptic churches, takes its name from being built above a gatehouse of that fortress. Nearby, the Ben Ezra Synagogue stands on a spot that local tradition links to the finding of the infant Moses; its storeroom yielded the famous Cairo Geniza documents.

After lunch at a local restaurant you have time to wander the quarter's narrow lanes before returning to your hotel to rest ahead of the desert journey.

After an early breakfast your private 4x4 heads west out of Cairo for the four-to-five-hour drive into the Western Desert, with farmland soon giving way to open gravel plains.

In palm-filled Bahariya Oasis you visit the Golden Mummies Museum, which displays Greco-Roman mummies found locally with gilded masks and painted wrappings, and climb to the English House, a hilltop lookout from the World War I era with wide views over the oasis and desert.

After lunch in the oasis, your 4x4 continues through the Black Desert, where volcanic hills scattered with dark stone rise above golden sand, and reaches your White Desert campsite in the late afternoon as the light turns soft. Your Bedouin crew prepares dinner, and with no city lights for hundreds of kilometers, the stars put on a show you rarely see at home. Tents, sleeping bags, and mats are provided.

You wake early to watch sunrise light up the White Desert's chalk formations, carved by wind into mushrooms, pillars, and shapes that resemble animals. The low sun throws long shadows across the sand, the best light of the trip for photographs.

After breakfast in camp your guide leads a walk among the formations, pointing out the most striking ones and explaining how wind and sand sculpted this landscape over millions of years from the bed of an ancient sea. Look closely and you may spot fossil shells embedded in the rock.

Then you break camp and begin the drive back toward Cairo, stopping for lunch on the way and pausing for a final photo stop among the Black Desert's volcanic hills. You arrive in Cairo in the evening and transfer to your hotel for a well-earned rest.

After breakfast at your hotel, the remaining time depends on your flight schedule. Use it to pack, shake the last desert sand out of your shoes, or take a final stroll near the hotel. If you leave late in the day, the front desk can usually advise on luggage storage.

When it is time, your driver collects you for the private transfer to Cairo International Airport. Because Cairo traffic can be unpredictable, the driver allows for congestion and check-in time so you arrive calm and on schedule for your international flight. Keep your passport handy, as there are security checks at the terminal entrance.

You leave having seen Egypt from several angles: the pyramids and the Nile temples, the Mediterranean port of Alexandria, the old churches of Cairo, and a silent night in the Western Desert.