Nile River Cruise

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Our Egyptian Adventure was a DIY project. I booked all flights directly with the airlines, all hotels online, as well as the cruise. (I will share the costs in a future post.)

But I was feeling anxious. I had heard nothing about our upcoming 4-night Luxor to Aswan cruise since booking and receiving an email confirmation six months prior. The reservation had been secured with a credit card, but my card had never been charged and my emails had been ignored. My concern was whether there was a boat actually expecting us.

Emailing one more time, I asked how to find the Steigenberger Minerva and was thrilled to finally receive a personal answer!

Flying from Cairo we arrived in Luxor and took a taxi to our hotel on the east bank of the Nile River. The following morning we leisurely breakfasted on the hotel terrace before walking 5 minutes to where the boat was docked.

Our boat, the Minerva. I felt like I was living in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.

Relief flooded over me as they welcomed us aboard with a cool fruit juice and a key card! Whew!

Another dose of relief rained on me upon seeing our cabin. Everything was lovely and exceeded my expectations.

One can do the tours on their own and arrange guide and transportation, but we opted for the guided tour package through the boat. It was easier to let the boat assign us to a guide and handle everything. We were informed that after lunch we would meet a guide and two travelers, young Belgians from a different boat, for our first tour to Luxor and Karnak Temples.

Karnak Temple

Karnak Temple Complex is huge and has everything one expects to see in Egypt. Gigantic statues, obelisks, sphinxes, hieroglyphs, columns, and more. It was called Thebes when it was the Capital of a unified Egypt in the 18th dynasty. Karnak is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Construction of Karnak’s temples started in the Middle Kingdom and continued into Ptolemaic times – from 1931 BC to 30 BC. Approximately thirty pharaohs contributed to its buildings which is why it is so varied.

A pretty impressive looking 1.7 mile Avenue of the Sphinxes road lined with over 600 sphinxes was constructed between 380–362 BC.
Some of the sphinxes are ram-heads, others are either lion-headed or man-headed.
The King’s Festivities Road or Avenue of the Sphinxes connects
Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple. It was buried under layers of sand and over the centuries before being re-discovered in the mid-1900s and excavated.
The Great Hypostyle Hall covers an area of 50,000 sq ft with 134 massive columns arranged in 16 rows. 122 of these columns are 33 feet tall, and the other 12 are 69 ft tall with a diameter of over 10 feet.
Columns topped with closed papyrus flowers capitals.
Columns topped with open papyrus flower capitals.
Queen Hapshepsut commissioned two obelisks to be constructed for this temple. One still stands and is the second-tallest ancient obelisk still standing on earth.

The guide wanted to give us a break from the heat and a opportunity for a drink. Just kidding, it was a shopping experience at a perfumery and a papyrus salesroom. We were served drinks and listened to their spiel, saw how papyrus was made, but didn’t buy. Although, due to taking a break, it was noticeably cooler when we arrived at Luxor Temple just as the sun was setting.

Luxor Temple

I can’t read hieroglyphs, but I can see the carved “obelisk” above. The guide said it reads, “I made this obelisk…”

The boat docked overnight in Luxor and the next day the same guide took the four of us to the Colossi of Memnon, the Valley of the Kings, Queen Hapshepsut’s Temple, and an alabaster workshop.

The Colossi of Memnon are two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, which stand at the front of the ruined Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III. The 60-tall statues have stood since 1350 BC.

The Valley of the Kings

The Valley of the Kings is a royal burial ground, a necropolis – a city for the dead – on the western side of the Nile River opposite Thebes, today’s city of Luxor where for a period of nearly 500 years rock-cut tombs were constructed and decorated for pharaohs and powerful nobles. Sixty-five tombs have been discovered, the most famous being the one of King Tutankhamun, the only tomb found that had not been pillaged by grave robbers.

The entrance ticket allows one to visit three tombs. There is an additional fee to visit the tomb of King Tut.
The tombs are decorated with religious texts, scenes from Egyptian mythology and funerary preparation and practices to help escort the dead to their afterlife.
The columns of hieroglyphics were so neatly written it reminded me of a children’s book.
The colors are vibrant and beautiful for being so old.
All of the discovered tombs to date (except for King Tut’s) were robbed in antiquity. The heavy stone sarcophagi were left behind.
The ceiling of this tomb is painted with a starry sky.
Anubis
The tomb walls were painted with all manner of food that the King would need in the afterlife: bread, fish, fruit, wine and they believed the magic chants written on the walls would give them life. Whatever personal items the King needed for a comfortable afterlife were placed in the chambers including sandals, clothing, jewelry, perfume, and furniture, etc.
I found it interesting that workers started constructing a Pharoah’s tomb immediately after being crowned. Work stopped when the Pharoah died because they had to commence work on the new Pharaoh’s tomb. therefore some kings were buried in unfinished tombs.

Mortuary Temple of Queen Hapshepsut

Queen-Pharoah Hapshepsut, was the daughter of King Thutmose I. She was a female king who attained unprecedented power for a woman, adopting the full titles and regalia of a pharaoh. In 1479 BC, King Thutmose II, her husband (as well as her half-brother) died and she ruled as regent for his infant son (by another wife) Thutmose III. Eventually she was crowned king and ruled until her death about 1458 BC after which King Thutmose III ruled Egypt alone for 33 years.

Her story is an interesting one you should Google if you want to know more.

The massive triple terraced Mortuary Temple of Queen Hapshepsut is considered to be a masterpiece of ancient architecture. It is pretty impressive!
Pretty bas relief of birds, open papyrus flowers and closed lotus flowers.

That evening the boat cruised upriver, going through the locks at Esna and docking at Edfu.

View from the sun deck as we cruised the Nile River.

Edfu Temple

The following morning we met a new guide who took the four of us to the Edfu Temple and back to our boats for lunch.

Edfu Temple is one of the best preserved shrines in Egypt. The temple was built in the Ptolemaic Kingdom between 237 and 57 BC. Over the centuries, the temple was buried beneath drifting desert sand and layers of river silt and by 1798 only the upper reaches of the temple walls were visible.
Horus

While the boat cruised, our guide and driver drove, in order to meet us later to take us to the Kom Ombo Temple. Interestingly, some of the guides were housed on the boat and dined together in the dining room. They were men; our guide was a female. She told us that several men could share a room, but the boat didn’t want to give up a room for one sole female.

Temple of Kom Ombo

Originally construction of Kom Ombo temple began in 2800 BC with construction ongoing through the Ptolemaic Dynasty c. 187-37 BC.
Over 300 mummified crocodiles were discovered here. Part of Kom Ombo temple was dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek,

That night the boat cruised to Aswan and the guide drove to Aswan.

Aswan

The next day after breakfast we met our guide again and were taken to the quarry to see the unfinished obelisk, to Philae Temple, the High Dam, and ending the day at the Aswan Botanical Garden.

An error caused this obelisk to be abandoned in the quarry and today we can visualize how stone was quarried. It would have measured about 137 feet if completed and is estimated to weigh around 1,200 tons. It’s thought that the female pharaoh Hatshepsut commissioned the work more than 3,500 years ago.
The Nile River originates at Lake Victoria (Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya) and flows north through 10 countries into the Mediterranean. The High Dam was constructed to control flooding, and provide water for irrigation.

Philae Temple

Since construction of the Aswan Low Dam in 1902 Philae Temple was nearly always flooded, therefore the temple complex was dismantled and moved to a downstream island as part of the UNESCO Nubia Campaign project, protecting this and other complexes before the 1970 completion of the Aswan High Dam.

This temple complex like the others has temples from many periods. This temple and its carvings are identical to Edfu Temple. Our guide said that they followed a pattern. The Romans also built temples here until 129 AD.
Every building was dismantled into about 40,000 units weighing from 2 to 25 tons and transported to the nearby Island of Agilkia, situated on higher ground some 1,600 ft away.
Constantius II ordered the closing of all pagan temples in 356 AD. By the 400s AD Egypt was entirely Christian. Christian churches have been found in the temple ruins.
Aswan Botanical Garden on Kitchener’s Island has exotic plants from all over the world.
The garden is just across the river from the desert. Well watered garden vs desolate desert.

Touring completed, the boat overnighted again in Aswan. The next morning we breakfasted and disembarked.

Many travelers opt for the optional post-cruise excursion to Abu Simbel so that’s where we will Meet You in the Morning!

We were assigned a table by ourselves as we were the only native English speaking guests. There were many German speakers and groups of Italians, Brazilians and Colombians around us. The food was great.

I know this was a long post with a lot of photos. We saw and learned so much and no doubt Egyptian historical documentaries are in our future.

Have you visited Upper Egypt? If not, is it a place you would like to visit? Did you find our photos intriguing? I invite you to leave a comment or question.

Thanks for reading.

Stay tuned. As always, I will be sharing our expense report soon.

4 responses to “Nile River Cruise”

  1. Thank you very much! I’m thrilled to see your pictures! So glad you share this way!
    Blessings always, Sandra BurnsDC

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  2. Great pictures! Your ship looks lovely. Interesting that you had a choice about whether or not to have a guide. We didn’t have a choice, but we lucked out. Our guide was absolutely incredible and really shaped our experience. He was a great connector for our group, which had about 18 people in it (although some people were stragglers arriving late or some being on a 7-day cruise and meeting us midway).

    Liked by 1 person

    • Hi Judy! Appreciate you stopping by to read my blog! I booked my cruise directly. How did you book yours? As to guides, we struggled a bit understanding all the names, mythology, astrology, gods, history and imagery. It might mean more as I look into a now more deeply. Glad we only had 4 in our group.

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