5 Star Nile Cruising Holidays

An enjoyable experience in Egypt is to cruise the mighty River Nile. Anchoring away from either Luxor or Aswan, Nile cruisers ply their route from Luxor south to Aswan or Aswan north to Luxor. During closure of the Esna lock for annual Nile maintenance in June and for a couple of weeks in early December (not Xmas), the cruise will start/finish outside of Luxor with appropriate transportation provided). Beside the relaxing river and sometime village views from aboard, ashore there are subject to one's itinerary and local conditions, sightseeing possibilities at Edfu and Kom Ombo.

Having the distinction of being the largest and most completely preserved pharaonic, albeit Greek-built, temple in Egypt, the Temple of Horus at Edfu, dedicated to the falcon-headed god Horus was one of the last monumental temples built on a large scale. Though much newer than the temples of Karnak and Luxor, its excellent state of structural preservation fills in a lot of historical gaps because it is, in effect, a 2000 year old replica of an architectural style that was already age old during Ptolemaic times.

The Temple of Kom Ombo (or more correctly - the Temple of Haroeris and Sobek) stands on a low promontory near a bend in the river whose sandbanks were a basking point for crocodiles in ancient times. It is a unique riverside temple, unusual in that everything is architecturally doubled and perfectly symmetrical along the main axis of the temple.