How do I put this trip into words?

Luxor, Egypt and Cairo

Viking Amun and Hilton Heliopolis Hotel

April 9, 2026 - April 16, 2026

Travelling home on April 17, 2026

WARNING! Grab a coffee or a stiff drink and settle in for a very long blog post. You can come back and break it up if you want! I wrote this blog on the 9 hour flight from Paris to Atlanta. It’s a great time to write since I was trying to stay awake to avoid jet lag! I hope you enjoy this blog!

When we did the 2022-2023 World Cruise with Viking on the Neptune, Egypt was the only place we visited that I did not write a blog about Luxor and what we saw that day.  I always meant to, it just didn’t happen with the length of the very long day, getting back to the ship late, all of the details I tried to remember on what we saw that day…but couldn’t, and all of the busy ports that followed our visit to Egypt.

So here I am flying home to our place in Florida, trying to encapsulate a week of River Cruising on the Viking Amun, remembering what we saw and did.  It is not ideal trying to remember everything but let me tell you Egypt changes you.  I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere else where the history of the place touched me so much.  Were we “templed” out?  Sure we were.  Were there too many early mornings?  “Yes, of course there were!  Did we get much rest on this cruise?  “No! But if we wanted rest”, as our Guide and Egyptologist Ahmed said on Day 1, “You should have stayed home!  You can always rest at home!”

I would say this was one of the most demanding vacations we have ever attempted.  Egypt is not for the faint of heart.  It is so dirty, dusty, gritty and edgily chaotic, but would I have wished to skip it?  Never!

Day 1:  Viking Amun Nile River Cruise

After flying to Luxor, Egypt to pick up the Viking Amun, a brand new built in 2025 Viking River Cruise ship on Thursday April 9, we had the afternoon to settle into our stateroom and unpack. Viking really rules the Nile in Egypt with more ships than any other River Cruise line and they have newer ships, and more arriving this year and next year. Viking has really invested in Egypt and the people of Egypt are very appreciative that Viking is bringing more tourists to Egypt. Egypt really relies on tourist dollars.

Sitting room with a balcony, couch, desk and tv. We really appreciated the space and the ability to hang out in this section of our cabin.

Queen bed on a Viking River Cruise. Ocean ships have King beds The suitcases all fit under the bed though!

Walk in closet with tons of storage The safe is in the top left drawer and takes up the entire drawer.

Vanity area for makeup and blow dryer. I used this a lot!

Bathroom area with a toilet behind one door and a shower behind another door. Tons of storage space, with heated floors and a heat towel rack.

After we got to our upgraded 2 room stateroom #303 on deck 3, I started unpacking while Richard did our usual ‘settle into our cabin on Viking routine’ (get an extra duvet - we like the weight of 2 duvets on Viking, get more coat hangars, meet with the cabin steward to advise him of Richard’s ice order at 4pm every day, and send our clothes out for pressing, and charge the Quiet Vox devices we had been using in Cairo for a few days).  We noticed right away as soon as we checked into our cabin on the Amun that a very loud noise would randomly occur and last for 2 seconds out of the blue.  We thought it was something that had to do with everyone getting settled onto the ship, so we thought it would cease.  The noise was so random and did not last long, so it was hard to describe, or even tape it to be able to play it for the Guest Services team onboard the Amun.

At 4:30pm we were asked to assemble for our next excursion of the day.  Now we had been up since 4:30am and while Richard had a very short nap after I got the cabin organized, we were both running on fumes from our very active start in Cairo.  In hindsight I think we should have arrived into Cairo on Sunday and not late Monday evening.  If we had arrived from Paris on Sunday we could have relaxed on Monday before the chaos of early tours starting on Tuesday morning, with a late Monday night arrival to the hotel in Cairo.  Anyway, live and learn I guess.  And good to know for anyone else doing this ‘Pharaohs and Pyramids’ itinerary with Viking.

Our Bus A group met with Ahmed and jumped on our “A” Bus for the tour of the Luxor temple which was about a 10 minute ride from our ship docked in Luxor.  A lot of other people had the same idea to visit Luxor Temple in the late afternoon/ early evening as the sun was setting.  It was quite crowded at Luxor Temple which we had not visited last time we were in Luxor in 2023.

The Temple of Luxor was built circa 1400BC by AmenhotepIII and Ramses II.

In fact I do not remember last time we were in Luxor being shown by our guide that the Temple of Karnak and the Temple of Luxor were ‘sister’ temples, joined by the ‘Avenue of the Sphinxes’.   We were not in Luxor at night before so of course we would not have seen the Avenue and the Sphinxes lit up, but I wonder why we weren’t told to look at the Avenue?

Avenue of the Sphinxes with Karnak Temple in the distance at the end of the Avenue.

The Avenue of the Sphinxes was really only found about 6 years ago and it opened to the public in November 2021!  There was a church as well as homes built over the sphinxes and the government had to move people to new homes in exchange for them giving up their homes to do the excavations to uncover the Avenue of the Sphinxes! The church was given another piece of land on the other side of the church to compensate for taking its land that the Avenue of the Sphinxes were on.

The question we asked Ahmed was “How come the people in Egypt who lived on this Avenue never brought it up that they were living on an archeologically significant place?  His response was that people in Egypt take it for granted and are more blasé about the fact that there are so many remains buried under the sands of Egypt, so what difference does it make if it is in their backyard?  Unbelievable!

Temple of Luxor, Luxor, Egypt

Temple of Luxor with the Luxor Obelisk. There were 2 pink granite obelisks originally concussed by Rameses II in 1250BC to flank the entrance to the Luxor Temple. Only one remains now because the other one was given to France in 1830 and stands in Paris’s Place de la Concorde. I took a shot of it last week but didn’t know the history behind it until now!

Matching obelisk in Paris’s Place de la Concorde. Photo I took when we were in Paris in March 2026. How cool is that to see both obelisk’s in one trip without knowing the history behind either one of them!

We had a good visit to the Temple of Luxor. Shooting photos at Blue Hour is one of my favourites and it’s so easy to get great shots at this time of day.

We met Ahmed after some free time in the temple of Luxor and after a short bus ride we were back to the Viking Amun for our Port Talk for tomorrow, and dinner.  We were overnighting in Luxor at the Viking private dock and next to us was the MS Antares, the first Nile cruise ship that Viking purchased from another company, renovated and was still using.  The guests of the Antares were on the very same itinerary as we were and we would see them throughout the entire voyage on the Amun.  We did have the chance at one point to walk through the Antares as we were docked up together, which saves docking fees.  The Antares is all dark wood inside, has a very dark, traditional interior and most of the cabins do not have balconies.  I’m glad we made the decision to sail the Nile on the brand new Amun…despite the recurring noise we were experiencing in our cabin.

At our Port Talk we learned that the folks that had signed up for the next morning’s optional hot air balloon ride would be leaving the ship at 5am!  Our friends Julie and

Steve had both signed up for this experience.  The hot air balloon ride would be over the Valley of the Kings, in Luxor as the sun was rising.  I don’t think I could have taken a back to back morning of getting up at 4:30am, so instead we slept in!

When we woke up we did go out on the balcony and see the hot air balloons over the Valley of the Kings. Someone was burning some crops so there was quite a bit of smoke in the air which made the photos not as clear as I would have liked.

The Amun was not sailing until the hot air balloon ride guests arrived back to the ship.  After everyone was back on board we would sail North on the Nile to Qena to visit Dendera Temple of Hathor.

Scenic sailing on the Nile is not like sailing on a European River Cruise, or the Mekong in Cambodia and Vietnam.  There are no commercial ships that use the Nile for transport. The only boats allowed on the Nile are for pleasure and private vessels for fishing and tourism.  The Nile is very wide, yet has very shallow areas, so as we were sailing there were times we were very close to the shore and the river grasses growing on the sides of the Nile.  Our Captain we found out has been navigating the waters of the Nile for over 40 years!  We also found out later during the Bridge tour that he has 2 wives and 18 children!  No wonder he spends so much time navigating the waters of the Nile for Viking!

Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula in relation to the Middle East countries of Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Our guides and our Hotel Manager Anna as well as her dedicated team of 55 staff (61 guests) could not thank us enough for continuing to have the confidence in Viking and them to actually visit Egypt during this Middle East crisis in Iran.  Many people think that Egypt is a part of the Middle East, but in fact Egypt is North East Africa and the Suez Canal is entirely within Egypt. The part of Egypt which does border Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia is the Sinai Peninsula on the East side of the Suez Canal. Egypt is NOT in the Middle East and is relatively safe to visit!  We did have an armed guard on every bus though and who also walked with us on all of our tours wherever we went in Egypt.  This is just ‘business as usual’ for foreign tourists visiting Egypt. The last thing Viking or the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Egypt wants to have happen is an incident involving a foreign tourist, which would set back the tourist industry in Egypt significantly.

Our cruise was the first cruise that our guide Ahmed who freelances with Viking has been able to do in a couple of months as Viking had cancelled some cruises in March and the last cruise he did do for Viking had about a 20 something people on the Viking Amun (which has a capacity of 80 people).

While we understand that Viking would like to run their cruise ships at full capacity, it was really nice to have an almost 1:1 staff to crew ratio and have lots of space in the common areas, dining room and Aquavit Terrace dining area to move around and find a table for dinner.

By now we had met up again with Steve and Sue from England and of course we had been travelling with Dave and Julie too.  So what does the ‘Commonwealth’ tour  do when travelling?  We added 2 more Ozzies to our tour!  We met Miriam and Digby from South East Australia just outside of Adelaide who quickly joined our group so that we had very lively lunches and dinners at a table for 8 with lots of good conversation and laughs every day!

When we sat at the same table every evening, the crew got to know us and always had 2 beers ready for Dave and Julie, with a glass of ice, White wine ready for Richard, Sue and Steve; mint lemonade for Miriam and me and limes in my drinking water.  The crew quickly picked up on our beverage orders and it was nice not to have to explain what we wanted when we sat down at mealtime to look at the very interesting menu choices.

Viking always has a destination menu at lunch and dinner. The destination menu has an appetizer, main course and dessert that the onboard chef has prepared for the day.  In addition to the destination menu there were also chef’s recommendations and standard fare such as salmon, chicken, steak, hamburgers and hot dogs as well as falafel and a veggie pasta dish.

Koshary the national dish of Egypt

The food onboard the Amun was very, very good.  Egyptian food shares many similarities with Lebanese or Moroccan food and yet also has some unique Egyptian dishes like a dish that has 2 kinds of pasta, brown lentils, chick peas and tomato sauce and fried onions on top of it. The name of this dish is Koshary and it is the national dish of Egypt.  I would be tempted to make it once we got back home as it was very interesting and unique.  I think I would add some ground meat or ground turkey in it as well.

Day 2 Viking Amun, Nile River Cruise

We arrived in Qena, Egypt after lunch on Day 2 on the Amun and we had a short drive through the downtown of Qena to visit Dendera Temple of Hathor.

Sections of the ceiling of Dendera Temple bore the grime of the fires that had been lit in the temple when in the past people had lived in the temple and cooked inside the temple.

Other sections of the temple ceiling had the most brilliant blue colour on the scenes carved into the stone.

The Eye of Horus and the 14 days of the waxing moon when there would be 14 days of rituals, feasting and drinking would ensure. This beautiful depiction is on the ceiling of the temple and the colors have not been edited. How beautiful!

Horus lost his eye fighting his uncle Set and it was magically restored by Thoth or Hathor, the main goddess of the Dendera Temple.

It was hot visiting the temple but it was not that crowded and we really enjoyed this colourful temple which apparently had the best preserved colours in all of Egypt.

After a short bus ride through Qena back to the ship we boarded the Amun where we headed back to Luxor where we would dock overnight.

Ramy the Egyptologist on Bus B was leading a talking in the Lounge this afternoon about Egypt and the Nile and the importance of the Nile throughout history for Egypt.  I decided to go to the lecture while Richard had a nap.

At the Nile lecture we learned that 95% of the population of Egypt lives within 19km of the River Nile.  The Nile is life in Egypt and the rest of the country is pretty much uninhabitable because it is desert.  The Nile is the longest river in the world running through Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and ending in Tanzania.  The Nile actually splits and becomes the Blue Nile and the White Nile.  The Blue Nile has the biggest flow of water on which Egypt relies on and Ethiopia has just built a dam on the Blue Nile which is very controversial because if the dam breaks (they have been having trouble with the engineering of the dam and it is not yet operational), Egypt would be obliterated in a Tsunami effect with most of the country living on the Banks of the Nile, if it ever flooded to the extent of a dam breaks in Ethiopia.  The Nile runs South to North and not North to South.  So on our upstream voyage to Qena today we were actually with the current.  Most of our Nile cruising down the Nile to eventually get to Aswan where the Aswan High Dam is located, will be against the current of the Nile.

Day 3 Viking Amun, Nile River Cruise

Today was going to be a big day in Luxor.  Our chance to visit the Valley of the Kings including 3 tombs of our choice, The Tomb of King Tutankhamen, SETI I , Howard Carter’s house, the Temple of Hatshepsut, and the Colossi of Memnon before we set sail for Esna, where we would dock overnight.

When we came to Egypt on the World Cruise we were docked for the day in Safaga which is about a 4 hour drive from Luxor, Egypt.  We had organized our own private tour in Luxor with a driver who picked us up at the port of Safaga and who dropped us off with a local Egyptologist in Luxor for the day. Our day was super long and exhausting and it was during Ramadan and we had 8 hours in the car to be able to have about 4 hours worth of private touring in Luxor.

Preparing for our visit to the Valley of the Kings I went through my photos to see which tombs we had visited in 2023 in the Valley of the Kings since I did not want to repeat what we had already seen.  We knew that King Tut’s tomb and SETI I would be new for us, but the 3 optional tombs that we could choose, I wanted to make sure we didn’t repeat them.  I noted on a piece of paper which tombs others recommended online and cross referenced it against what we had seen already so we would be ready when we had our free time in the Valley of the Kings.

Day 3, Viking Amun Nile Cruise. Luxor and Esna

Our guide Ahmed was very helpful in the Valley of the Kings once we arrived guiding us to King Tut’s tomb and SETI I tomb so we got those out of the way before the crowds and lineups really got too long. Touring in Egypt means getting up early and getting a head start on the day before the heat, the dust and sand and crowds wear you down!

It was neat to finally see the mummified body in King Tut’s tomb after all these years!  Tut was 18 when he died and his tomb is not at all like the other king’s tombs in the Valley as it is believed that he died suddenly and there was no time for him to have his tomb prepared in his lifetime for his journey in the underworld.  Ahmed explained that the Ancient Egyptians were more focused on living for eternity in the underworld rather than the short time they knew they would spend on earth.  This is why the King’s spent so much time having their tombs dug out and decorated before they died.  King Tut’s tomb discovered by Howard Carter in November 1922 is the only tomb in Egypt that was discovered completely intact with all of the burial treasures in the tomb.  Tomb raiders over the centuries have discovered and looted other tombs and trading in Ancient Egyptian antiquities was a very profitable venture in the past, but it is now illegal in Egypt.

SETI I’s tomb was a very difficult, deep tomb to enter and exit, but well worth the visit.  SETI I was the father of Rameses II who reigned for 11 years from 1290 BC to 1279BC, There is NO WAY anyone with mobility issues and weak legs, or lungs could do the climbing in the heat that is required to visit these tombs.  The tombs get hotter as you get deeper inside and with the crowds picking up to visit the more popular tombs, it really was a sweat dripping down the back of the neck and back kind of day!

We also visited the tombs of:

Rameses IX,

Rameses I

and Queen Tausert/Setnakht

the only Queen buried in the Valley of the Kings. So in total today we were able to visit 5 tombs, and combined with the 3 previous tombs, we have visited 8 tombs in the Valley.  I did want to visit the tombs of Rameses V and VI as I had read online that it was a very good tomb to visit, but the tomb required an extra ticket which Viking did not cover and we did not know ahead of time that we should have purchased an extra ticket to visit this tomb.  Oh well.  Live and learn.  I should have done my research better and asked Ahmed when we arrived where I could purchase the extra tickets for this tomb.

We headed back to Bus A and made our way over to Howard Carter’s house which was located just outside the gates of the Valley. 

We were able to get off the bus and walk around the home which was quite spacious and nicely furnished in the original furnishings from when Carter lived in the home.

He apparently would take a mule every day from his home over the excavation site while his crew was looking for King Tut’s tomb and after it was found, classifying all of the exhibits from the tomb. 

Having seen the over 5,000 items that were buried with King Tut at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo the other day, it must have been quite the project to catalogue and transport all of the items in the tomb to ensure the tomb remained intact and so did the treasures.

Lord Carnavon was the financial backer of Howard Carter who found the tomb of King Tut.

Our next stop was a short bus ride over to the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, the only Queen that actually ruled Egypt. She ruled between 1479-1458 BC and oversaw one of the greatest periods of prosperity in Egypt and was one of the most prolific builders too.

She oversaw large scale construction projects like the construction of the Karnak Temple Complex  We had visited this site before and taken our photos and frankly the walk up the steps to the Temple did not interest us as we knew there was nothing to see inside.  We took some photos and headed back on the golf cart shuttle to the visitors centre where we could relax in the air conditioning before meeting up with our group to board the Bus to our next stop.

As we drove from the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut to the Colossi of Memnon Ahmed explained that everywhere you look there are archeological digs going on. In fact at the site of the Colossi of Memnon they recently uncovered more large statues since even we last visited in 2023.  The two large stone statues are of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III and they have stood in place since 1350BC. The statues contain 107 Roman-era inscriptions in Greek and Latin dated to AD20-250 and many of these inscriptions make reference to a Greek mythological king Memnon whom the statues contain was erroneously thought to represent.

We were pretty dusty, dirty and exhausted after such a long morning in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor.  It was time to board the Viking Amun, have lunch and set sail for Esna.

We would be going through a lock on the Nile to get to Esna and we were warned that the locals would come out in boats and if we were on our balconies they would start throwing Egyptian cotton towels, tablecloths and tshirts up at us to purchase from them. As we approached Esna we could hear “Good Morning” and “Hallo, Hallo, Hallo” as the boats got next to our ship as we slowed down to enter the Esna lock.  The vendors really have it down to a science.  One guy drives the rudder on the boat and the other guy fires up stuff at the balcony often wrapped in a plastic bag.  They were yelling at us to come out to the balcony and make deals with them all the while the one guy is standing and throwing and the other guy is driving the boat.  It was quite funny actually and happened both coming and going through the locks. We pitched their stuff back at them even seeing them miss the deck and sinking a tablecloth in the process that was not wrapped in plastic. A strange way to make a living!

We arrived in Esna to dock overnight and the Viking MS Antares was next to us for the night.  Viking had arranged for special onboard entertainment overnight to perform in the lounge at 8:45pm after dinner.  We headed up to the lounge after dinner to see that there was a small drum band and singer as well as a whirling dervish dancer onboard.

It was amazing to see the whirling dervish spin and dance. He spun for 9 minutes straight without stopping during his performance which lasted about 20 minutes in total. I have NO IDEA how on earth he could keep spinning and not fall over or get dizzy after spinning for so long. I was watching his feet to see the pattern that he was consistently keeping to ensure that he didn’t lose his footing. It was fascinating to watch and what a treat to have such high quality entertainment come onboard the ship to watch!

Day 4 Viking Amun River Cruise.  Esna

Our morning started with either a walking tour of Esna City or a visit to the Temple of Esna.  We elected to do the Walking Tour of Esna City which meant that we had to move over to be with Rana, the female guide from Bus C.  Our friends Dave and Julie and Miriam and Digby had been on Rana’s Bus C and quickly realized how annoyed Rana’s voice and commentary was and so they would change their Quietvox devices to tune into channel 7 and follow along and wander with our guide Ahmed.  Unfortunately we chose the wrong tour in Esna City which meant that we were stuck with annoying guide Rana for the 1 hour tour of the city.

The option to turn off our Quiet Vox devices and just wander on our own was also available to us but every time we wandered a little bit away from the group in the town, the armed guard that was with us would come with us. 

We decided to stick with the short tour of Esna Village and then enjoy the 30 minutes of free time we had after the tour to wander through the local market and try and negotiate with the vendors for stuff we wanted to purchase.  Our guides have a unique term for every time we get off a bus and get to a market. There are always a lot of vendors trying to sell us stuff before we enter a temple or exit a temple. We have been trained to stay focused, with the tour and don’t make eye contact.   They call the area we have to walk through “The Valley of the Vultures!”  It’s hilarious to engage with the vultures because whatever they quote you for an item you cut the price in half.  If you are willing to walk away you can usually get your purchase for half of the original price quoted.

I was interested in some scarves we had seen when we initially walked through the town, so I went back to the vendor’s stall and started to haggle. The stall owner’s English is pretty good and there is always one vendor in the stall that has a better command of the English language and is directing his two colleagues in Arabic to run and get the inventory that is often stored behind the hanging scarves or  somewhere else for me to review.

I made some good purchases of woven bags just before heading across the street to the ship. The key is to show the money, hold onto it and negotiate hard and be prepared to walk. I had the bags in my hand and the money I was willing to pay and the owner was pleading for more money.  I kept pointing to the ship and saying I have to be back onboard. I was able to get exactly what I wanted for half the original asking price since the vendors knew once our ship sailed there went their profits for the day until the next cruise ship arrived!

This afternoon onboard there were a lot of enrichment lectures available as well as a falafel making demonstration by the ship’s Chef.  I chose to just go to the hieroglyphics workshop put on by Ramy the Bus B guide as I wanted to work on blogs, and photos while we had some decent internet.  I had ordered my name on a cartouche onboard the ship on Day 1 from the jeweller onboard and so I already knew how to write my name in hieroglyphics.  Ramy had everyone draw their names on a sheet he handed out and then he graded them! I got 10/10. I also wrote Richard’s name and he could read it, so I got it right too.  It was fun and made it interesting for when we saw the hieroglyphics in the temples so that we could start to understand some of the written, but not spoken language of hieroglyphics.

I also broke out my watercolour paints for the first time in a long time and decided to look at my photos of the pyramids of Giza to see if I could find a scene that I wanted to paint in water colours.  I ended up combining 2 photos to get the scene that I painted while Richard napped this afternoon in our cabin.

Tonight was a special night on the ship. We were having an Egyptian night and anyone that had purchased a traditional Egyptian galabeya, top or tshirt was encouraged to wear them for dinner and to the show after dinner. 

I had purchased a galabeya at the Valley of the Kings in the Valley of the Vultures the day before and also got Richard a hieroglyphics T-shirt that he could wear for dinner.

Almost half the people on the ship came dressed in Egyptian outfits they had purchased while on the Nile.  The dinner this evening was also Egyptian food served family style on each table. We enjoyed a variety of mezze to start which included baba ganouche, hummous, red pepper dip, fava bean dip, tahini dip, as well as some other dips served with traditional Egyptian pita rounds.

The food was delicious but there was too much food and we couldn’t finish it which was such a waste of food.  I suggested in my post cruise survey that Viking should offer a buffet instead so people only took what they could eat from the buffet.

After dinner Viking brought in another group of 3 male dancers, drummers and a singer. This group was very loud and Richard couldn’t handle listening to them. He immediately left to go to our cabin to avoid the noise. I sat at the bar to watch the performance as I did not want to get dragged into performing in their show which some of the other guests survived.

Day 5, Viking Amun Nile Cruise, Aswan

In the port talk last evening we found out that the optional tour to Abu Simbel would be departing today at 7:30am from the ship.  I had signed up for this optional tour as I had read the book ‘Empress of the Nile’ last year which was about the French female Egyptologist named Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt who petitioned UNESCO to assist with moving this ancient temple before the construction of the High Aswan dam was completed.  If this forethought of moving the Temple of Abu Simbel had not occurred, the entire temple would have been lost under the waters of the Nile once the dam was constructed.

We have been told to get to the bus 15 minutes before our bus leaves and Ramy was the leader for the tour to Abu Simbel today. I was running a little late and didn’t manage to get to the bus by 7:15am and next thing you know we received a call in the cabin that I needed to get to the bus asap.  I managed to get to the bus at 7:20am and the bus ‘rolled’ as they liked to say at 7:25am for a visit to the High Aswan Dam, before we would fly to Abu Simbel for the day.

The High Aswan dam project was undertaken by the government of Egypt and The Soviet Union in the 1960’s to prevent the constant cycle of the flooding of the Nile.  The Nile River valley is the source of life for Egypt’s crops and the constant cycle of flooding every 7 years or so, wreaked havoc on the country of Egypt over time.  The ambitious project to construct the highest dam in the world was meant to provide for the water flow of the Nile and more consistency, but also to be a source of hydro electric power for Egypt’s growing population. 100,000 people were displaced with the building of the dam.

High Aswan Dam memorial

After visiting the dam, and viewing Lake Nasser (the artificial lake that was created a result of  the dam construction) and the memorial to the construction of the dam it was time to head to the Aswan International airport for our private chartered flight to Abu Simbel.  There were 22 out of the 62 guests onboard who were making the trip to Abu Simbel for this optional excursion.

We did the usual security when you enter the airport, pat down by a female guard for the women and a male guard for the men; followed by a take your shoes off security stop and another pat down by either a female or male guard.  Our flight was at 10am to Abu Simbel and the flight time was 40 minutes.  The plane at this airport was on the tarmac, so we all had to board a shuttle bus to the plane. We had Bombardier Dash 8 as our plane for this trip.

When we got to Abu Simbel International Airport we disembarked on the tarmac, shuttle bus to the airport, toilets, and got on our bus to Abu Simbel which was only about a 10 minutes ride through the very small town of Abu Simbel.

I was really excited for this tour today! 

We stopped at the Visitors Centre for a quick look around and to see the location on a map of the original temples.  Rameses II built himself a temple on the water 600km south of Luxor to ward off his enemies and he also built a temple for his favourite wife, Neferati too.  Both temples had been moved in the 1960’s using Italian stonecutters to carefully cut the stones of the temple and reassemble them 60 metres higher than the waters of Lake Nasser.

Abu Simbel temple.=

Rameses II

Our guide Ramy could not come inside the temples to commentate so we had the opportunity to spend an hour visiting both temples and looking at the insides of the temple.

The temple of Rameses II had a very unique feature which needed to be replicated when the temple was moved.

Twice a year on February 22 and October 22 at sunrise for about 20 minutes the light shined through the temple into the holiest inner sanctuary of the temple and shone on the face of Rameses II.  How the ancient Egyptians were able to figure this out to build the temple so exacting is amazing. When the temples were moved they tried with modern technology to replicate the same light shining through on Rameses II and they got it wrong by a day!  Every year the Abu Simbel airport and the Temple grounds are packed with thousands of tourists who come to see the light shining on the face of Rameses II on these two days of the year. Fascinating!

I walked back to the Visitors Centre to take some more photos of the construction and movement of the temple and to watch a short film of this amazing feat, before walking through the Valley of the Vultures back to the bus.

I did have a fun negotiation with the very last vendor in the Valley who wanted $85 USD for a shirt as his first offer.  I started at $10 USD and kept walking. I was almost to the bus when I was able to finally get 2 shirts for $20 USD which was my original price. I know the vendor wasn’t happy but I mean what does a long sleeved cotton shirt cost when you see them everywhere and no one is ever charging $85 USD for a shirt!

We headed back to Abu Simbel International airport and had the same check in process at the airport. Our flight was scheduled for 2pm and we arrived back to the ship at exactly 3:30pm which was exactly on time according to our port talk the day before. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed Abu Simbel and for me it was the highlight of the trip to Egypt!

Richard had done the included tour today and he got to sail on the Nile in a traditional Egyptian falukka for about 45 minutes after he had visited a spice market and negotiated for some spices for meats and chicken to bring home with us.

I was pretty tired after the trip to Abu Simbel but it was nice to shower and meet up with our Commonwealth friends in the lounge to debrief them on my trip today since I was the only one in our group that had done the journey. Miriam and Digby had done an optional tour to a botanical gardens on an island in Aswan and they also got to see the Agatha Christie suite 1201 at the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Hotel Aswan which was used in the book “Death on the Nile” which was written by Agatha Christie.

After dinner we headed back to our cabin and decided to watch the 2022 remake of the movie ‘Death on the Nile’ and the movie used sets made to replicate Abu Simbel before it had been moved.  So while Richard didn’t get to go to Abu Simbel today, he saw the movie and my photos and felt like he had experienced it for himself!

Day 6 Viking Amun, Nile Cruise, Aswan

We are docked in Aswan for a few days to tour around this area which is very interesting and has a different ancient civilization called the Nubians who had to have their traditional houses moved by the government when the High Aswan Dam was constructed.

Our shore excursion today was quite busy but we started with a lovely sail in a traditional painted motorboat up the Nile for 45 minutes at 8:30am to visit a Nubian Village on the West Bank of the Nile.  We enjoyed the peaceful sailing on the Nile seeing lots of wildlife and birds, but no crocodiles!  The Nile crocodiles got trapped behind the Aswan dam in Lake Nasser when it was constructed and while some crocodiles do get through the dam turbines, the Nile crocodiles are pretty much extinct according to our guide Ahmed.

As we sailed up the Nile towards the Nubian Village we could see the beautiful painted homes and the unusual architecture on the homes. All of the homes had domed tops which were meant to keep the home cooler and also to be able to hang perishables up in the domed area, so they would stay fresher for 3 days. Now these homes have electricity and running water etc, but the architecture with the domed roof still exists in any new Nubian homes.

Some of the younger Nubians who have gone to the University in Aswan have returned home to their villages and are constructing Nubian AirBnB residences for visitors to come and stay in overnight for an authentic Nubian experience. I think I will stick to the comfort of our Viking Amun cruise ship thank you very much!

After wandering around one traditional Nubian home that Viking paid the owners for us to visit, we got back on our sailing ship to sail to the East Bank of Aswan, where we met up with our Group’s A, B & C buses to take us for a short bus ride to then get on another boat to go to the temple of Philae which was located on an island.

Apparently the temple was discovered completely submerged under the Nile on the island it was on and it was moved in 1959 to Agilkia Islanda to save the temple, it was moved to an island that does not flood in the Nile. It took workers 8 years to fully deconstruct the temple and relocate.

After we finished with visiting the now very crowded temple, we sat and enjoyed a cold fresh squeezed orange juice in the outdoor cafe before getting back on our boat to take us back to our bus.

Our last stop today was to visit a traditional papyrus making company. We had a quick demonstration of how papyrus is made by cutting the stem of the plant, rolling the stem out and then soaking it for a week to get the sugar out of it, before then weaving the pieces and letting them dry for a week to then be able to paint or draw on it.  Fascinating.

Of course this tourist stop was to show us this ancient method of using papyrus for writing or drawing on, but there was lots of opportunities to purchase a papyrus to get framed back home.  I fell in love with a very colourful papyrus which was more modern and featured a Nubian village and some falukka’s sailing on the Nile.  I was able to negotiate a 15% discount on the last original piece by this artist and paid for the papyrus which they then wrapped up carefully in a tube to bring home to get framed.

What a busy day.  We were on 4 ships, and 3 buses before we finally got back to the Amun!

We weren’t done though for visiting temples today though.

We had lunch onboard as we set sail to dock later in the afternoon to visit the Temple of KOMOMBO and the Crocodile Mummy Museum. 

We found the Temple very crowded, busy and hot, but very interesting with the first every recorded use of a calendar system written on the walls of the temple, as well as the first birthing chair and the first medical or surgical instruments on the temple walls.

The Crocodile mummy museum was really quick to walk through and thankfully was air conditioned since visiting anything in Egypt in the afternoon is like a death march in the heat. It was 37C this afternoon visiting the Temple of KOMOMBO.

We set sail for Edfu where we would be docking overnight. We ended up docking in Edfu with our side of the ship on the port side this evening. This was a first as we have always been on the water side.  The cacophony of noise coming from this busy city was crazy and we were not sure how on earth we were going to be able to sleep since the city just didn’t seem to stop even late at night. Richard called Guest Services and they sent us up some ear plugs but that didn’t really help either.

Day 7 Viking Amun Nile Cruise.  Edfu.

4:30am….the call to prayer. OMG. The call to prayer speakers from the mosque were directly blasting into our cabin at sunrise this morning!  This was the first time that the call to prayer actually woke us up. We had heard from some of our friends who were always docked on the port side that they had been woken up by the call to prayer every morning. Anyway, we both sort of went back to sleep, but it was a pretty rough night for sleep.

Our excursions today were staged. Our bus would be leaving at 8:30am; Bus B would begin at 9am and Bus C at 9:30am.  Of course we had to be off the ship first but thank god we were off first because by the time we got to the temple of Horus in Edfu there must have been 30 bus loads of tourists ahead of us at the temple. The temple opened at 7am and I am sure there were people waiting in line for it to open to avoid the dust and heat.

The temperature was 96F or 37 F at 8:45am. We headed with Ahmed to get into the temple and the crowds made it almost impossible for him to be able to show us what he wanted to talk about.

We have seen that Ahmed is super respected by all of the security and personnel that work at all of these temples and whenever we get to a spot on the wall of the temple that he wants to talk about, the other guides that have their non Viking groups ahead of us usually have a quick chat with Ahmed and then they move out of the way so we can see what he wants to show us.  Viking times our entrance and also the areas of the temple that we are to see and it is arranged with the tourism council for each temple. Today though there were so many guides and they were refusing to move out of the way for Ahmed and it just became so overwhelming that we pretty much had to abandon the tour before he showed us much of what he wanted to talk about.

With my free time I headed to elbow my way into the holiest of part of the temple to take a video and some photos. It was so crazy with people pushing and shoving and Richard left me to it while he went to sit and wait for everyone in our group to be ready to head back to the bus.

I felt sorry for the other groups coming after us on our ship who had to brave even more crowds and more heat when they got to the Temple of Horus in Edfu.  My suggestion on my comment form was Viking needs to either get us exclusive access or get us to the temple earlier to beat the crowds.

We left Edfu for Luxor where we would be docking overnight. As we got to Esna again the vultures in boats surrounded us when we got to the locks.  I was brave and stepped out on the balcony to see them throw the towels at me and I just threw them right back to them!

We spent the afternoon packing and getting organized to depart the ship at 8:30am the next day. We had the option to go to some enrichment lectures on Women in Egypt with Rana, but I opted out of that in favour of relaxing after getting our cabin organized.

Day 8 Viking Amun Nile Cruise

We had to have our luggage outside of our cabin at 6:30am to meet on the dock at 7:30am for our transfer to Luxor Airport for our flight to Cairo.  The dock in Luxor is down a very steep set of steps and the Amun crew had to haul all of our individual suitcases up the steps to load onto the bus after we identified our suitcase by lifting the handles of the suitcases before they were loaded onto the bus.

Packing was tricky for this section of the cruise as we had to think about what we suitcases we wanted to open when we got to Cairo, as we had an optional afternoon excursion booked  and what would our travelling clothes back to Florida end up being?

I thought I had packed properly and then at the port talk we were told no shorts in Cairo as Viking has a policy when we visit churches to cover our knees.  I had to repack what we both were going to wear in Cairo to keep with the dress code.

Our transfer to Luxor airport and the 1 hour flight to Cairo airport all went well. There are always people at the airport with luggage carts willing to assist for $2USD or 200 Egyptian pounds.

We were going to be given day rooms at the Hilton Hotel Heliopolis near Cairo to use for the day and the hotel was about a 10 minute drive from Cairo airport.  We were on a private charter out of Luxor so all of the luggage would make it without any issues.

When we boarded our bus A to the hotel our driver ended up hitting a parked car with the bus. We had been told by Ahmed that they do not have car insurance in Egypt so if there is an accident usually two people who saw the accident come and assess the damage and then more people come and then they agree or disagree with the original assessors. When we heard and felt the bus take off the front fender from the parked Hyundai vehicle we thought “OH NO, We are going to be here forever!” Since the car was parked though and the owner was not around our bus driver got out of the bus and put his phone number on a piece of paper for the owner to call him when he got back to his vehicle.  Very civilized but how different from what happens in our society!

We were given our room keys as soon as we got to the Hilton Hotel and all of the Viking group from the Amun were put on the 6th or top floor of the hotel. We waited until all of our luggage was received in our room and then we headed downstairs to the included Viking lunch buffet in the hotel.

The buffet at the Hilton was amazing!  Wow!  So much choice and so delicious. We would be enjoying a buffet dinner on Viking this evening too at the same restaurant after we returned from our Optional excursion.

At 2pm we met in the lobby and unfortunately we ended up with the guide Rana for the Coptic Cairo tour.  The other tour was a visit to the Egyptian Pharaoh Museum to see the mummies of the pharaohs. We had not booked an optional excursion on this day when I was choosing our excursions 180 days in advance of our sailing, but when we got to Cairo Ahmed reviewed the plans for our last day and if we didn’t do an Optional excursion we would be stuck at the airport hotel with nothing to do until our departure time to Cairo airport.

Ahmed walked me through the various Optional excursions on Day 1 in Cairo and we decided seeing something completely different than the Pharaohs and Pyramids at the end of our tour which also represented a significant portion of the Egyptian population who were Coptic Christians would be interesting.

Our bus with our guide Rana took us to Coptic Cairo which was about 12 km through downtown Cairo traffic.  We exited the bus and the heat, noise, dust of Cairo hit us like a ton of bricks. OMG it was so hot!  38C and the forecast for the next day was 44C!  Thank goodness we had done this trip earlier when it wasn’t as hot every day!

We visited the oldest Jewish synagogue in Cairo named…..where history claims that Moses was found by the Pharaoh’s daughter in the bullrushes.

After visiting the synagogue we then walked in the heat down the road to the Coptic Museum which was air conditioned on the main floor, but which was very hot on the 2nd floor. 

The Museum was very interesting and had quite a few interesting artifacts from the Coptic history of Egypt including the oldest book of Psalms found 100km south of Cairo in the grave of a young child who used the book as a pillow.   

We then walked to visit the “Hanging Church” which is built on the ancient Babylon Roman fortress.  The church was very small inside but interesting to walk through.  After the visit to the three sites we headed back to the bus for our trip back to the Hilton Heliopolis hotel near the airport.  Traffic was chaotic and noisy with everyone honking all the time when they drive. We ended up back at the hotel at 5:30pm which was right on time.

We had dinner with Steve and Sue from England who have now booked to go on a Viking Cruise with us and Gene and Margaret from our World Cruise next year in October 2027.  It will be nice to see them again next year!

The buffet was excellent again and we lingered with Steve and Sue until around 9pm before heading to our hotel room to shower and have our luggage outside of the room by 11:30pm for our midnight shuttle to Cairo airport.

Viking brought our tour bus for the transfer to the airport which took only 10 minute at midnight and we had assistance from a Viking Rep at the airport to get us through the various security checkpoints before finally getting to the Air France Business Class check in.

Richard was worried about our connection time in Paris and the gate agent assured us that the terminal we would be arriving at was right next to the terminal we would be departing for Amsterdam at.

We went to the Delta/Air France lounge and I went to spend the remaining Egyptian pounds that we had on some souvenirs for our family in Canada.

We boarded our flight to Paris which was only 4 hours and 20 minutes and both of us immediately went to sleep. The flight left Cairo late which worried me since I knew how short our connection time was at CDG in Paris.

I had entered all of our flights into Chat GPT to find out when I should be sleeping to try to avoid jet lag upon arrival in Florida.  Since we were arriving back to North America in the daytime, the less we sleep on these flights means we will sleep well when we get to our home.

As soon as we got off the plane in Paris we had to go down a long corridor with two sets of moving sidewalks. We then had to then go down an escalator and board a shuttle bus to take us to another terminal. Once we got to that terminal we then had to go through security and take out all iPhones, iPads, watches etc and put them in the bin to go through security. We both forgot that we were dragging around my old iPad which we had brought with us from Florida and I had replaced in Canada on our stopover before we flew to Barcelona. Of course the bag got pulled over, swabbed and then the security person decided to rescan the bag without the iPad but went on a break and we were standing waiting for the bag to come through the scanning machine for 5 minutes.

After getting the bag repacked with the iPad we then had to get through passport control. Nothing is automated at this airport and even though we were sky priority with Air France we still had to join a line and wait. There were two agents scanning passports of departing passengers and they were not moving very fast.  Richard got through passport control before me and he said he was going to run to try and make the flight. I don’t run anymore since I broke my femur, so I followed along and when I got to the gate, the gate was closed and the ground staff were bringing up the wheelchairs from the plane. We saw the loading bridge moving away from our flight and then we realized we weren’t going to make the flight to Amsterdam out of Paris.  Leaving Cairo late because they couldn’t get the boarding done efficiently was the reason we missed the flight to Amsterdam coupled with the issues with security scanning and passport control at CDG.

Anyway, now what?  Richard saw there was an Air France desk in our terminal near our gate so I sat with our rollerboards and he went to see what they could do for us to get us home.  He specifically asked if there was anyway they could get us back to Atlanta and avoid Amsterdam and Toronto as he knew we had a connection later in the day from Atlanta to Tampa.  He returned with the last two business class seats on the 2pm flight from Paris to Atlanta!  Nice!  We were assured that our luggage would be re-routed to Atlanta as it never made the Amsterdam flight. The only issue was the flight in Atlanta to Tampa might cancel us as we were flying on a different ticket than our International tickets.

We ended up having to go back to the terminal M that we had arrived at from Cairo after a very long Passport control line which took 45 minutes. We made it to the Air France Lounge finally in terminal M and Richard started to try to reach out to Delta about making sure our ticket from Atlanta to Tampa wasn’t cancelled on us when we landed after a 9 hour flight in Atlanta.

Richard couldn’t get through to an agent so he started to chat to one online. He was getting no where and it was getting close to our boarding time for Atlanta so I told him to just try calling again. He called and got through and was able to get an agent to make sure that we were now on the same file and that our boarding passes for Tampa would be in our Delta app and our flight wouldn’t be cancelled to Tampa.

I’m still not sure what is happening in Atlanta as our luggage was only checked to Atlanta so I expect we have to pick it up and recheck it to Tampa. Richard is hoping that we can make an earlier flight to Tampa than the one we originally booked on our own since we are arriving earlier to Atlanta than our original Cairo, Amsterdam, Toronto, Atlanta, Tampa itinerary would have.  I’m glad we only have 3 flights instead of 5 as I was certainly not looking forward to 5 flights to get home!

I’m writing this blog from the flight home as I didn’t have time on the cruise and we shall see what happens when we get to Atlanta.

This trip we both rated as a 9/10. Our first cruise, our week in Paris and our time in Egypt in Cairo and on the Nile Cruise.  It was a killer though for steps and for walking and we are so glad that we are fit and able to do it at our age. I think the older we get this kind of trip will be off the table. We always said when we did the World Cruise that we wanted to go deeper on some of the places we visited around the world. We have since done that with Cambodia and Vietnam and now with Egypt.  Really interesting places with very different histories.

We have checked a lot more countries off on our itinerary this trip:  Corsica, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco for Richard and new cities like Cadiz and Malaga, Cairo for Ruth and all of the small cities along the Nile. Quite an interesting trip and we have learned a ton. Next year on our Viking Ocean cruise we are sailing from Venice to Istanbul and exploring the Adriatic which we have never visited before. Travel is of course the best education so it was amazing to be able to ‘Check this Off our Bucket List’ and see different countries, cultures and civilizations, experience new foods and explore exciting historical places. WOW! What a great way to celebrate my 65th birthday! Now I need a vacation from my vacation!