I felt very blessed that the next stop after The Nubian Village was to take The Nile Cruise. What I’ve learned is that there are very few accessible and affordable places in the world where you can see landscapes and lifestyles that have stayed virtually unchanged for 4000 years. The Nile Valley in Egypt is one of these place and the best way to experience it is by cruising along the river itself. And yeah, I was so ready for it…
The Nile, I learned is one one of the world’s longest and most legendary rivers runs more than 4100 miles through five countries, but it’s mostly connected to Egypt. That’s because so much of Egyptian history happened along the Nile that nearly all of the country’s major cities and ancient tombs and temples are located along it.
You see, the ancient Egyptians used the river as a highway to trade, to manifest military expeditions and to transfer the statues of their gods between the various temples. The 5th century BCE Greek historian Herodotus once called Egypt the “gift of the Nile,” and even now, millennia later, cruising the Nile is still the best way for travelers to see Egypt’s many gifts “in real time”.
So here are some images of the boat Solaris I and then an itinerary of the stops along the way.
We visited the Edfu Temple and then sailed to Luxor through Esna. Then we visited the East Bank in Luxor where we explored the Karnak temple and the Luxor Temple.
In addition we visited the High Dam, the Philae Temple, the Valley of the Kings, the Queen Hatshepsut Temple and the Colossi of Memnon.
It was truly an amazing journey through the times of ancient Egypt all done using the Cruise Boat as transport.
