Egypt, the Land of Pharaohs and Pyramids. The Nile continues to attract visitors in large number ever since Napoleon “visited” in 1799. He, as we are still today, was moved by the sheer ancientness of the land – “From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.”

As a destination, Egypt winds up on many people’s bucket lists. It certainly appeared on my wife’s. She had been enthralled by the ancient civilization back to her days as a young teen-age student. So, even though the Nile did not show up in my bucket – even if I had one – I agreed to accompany her on a trip celebrating one of those decade birthdays.

How to Visit the Land of the Pharaoh

You can visit Egypt one of two ways – of course, you can also mix the two methods. First, the easiest but also most costly, is to arrange everything beforehand. Second, you can arrange a roundtrip flight to Cairo – or any other of several international destinations within the country – and then wing it. Without any knowledge of Arabic and never having been to Egypt before – the closest I have been is Ramallah in Palestine – we chose the easy path. Our seatmate on a connecting flight from London to Cairo chose the second route.

Our plane arrived at the Cairo International Airport a couple of minutes before midnight. Representatives of our tour company met us and shepherded us through the immigration-customs proceedings, including the $30 US Egypt Tourist Visa purchase everyone must get upon arrival. Our friend from the Inland Empire of Southern California, fresh off a similar “winging” adventure to Thailand, had no plans beyond catching an early morning flight onward to Luxor. He hoped to sleep a little in the airport. I am not sure he even knew he needed to go to another terminal.

Certainly, you can “wing” things after getting to Egypt, though I would probably get a hotel reservation somewhere in Cairo first. From there, I would see what was available from local agents. One could get off the plane and uber to the train station – probably closed that late at night – and head south on a train, but that could be a bit daunting for someone jetlagged coming off 30 hours on the go. It was certainly much nicer to head directly to our hotel and finally sleep more than two hours.

Viking Tours

If you watch any US Public Broadcasting System television shows you are probably aware of the Viking Tour Company. The Swiss-Norwegian company is famous for its European river cruise network on rivers like the Rhine, Danube, Rhone, Duoro and its complementing ocean cruises sharing itineraries with many other lines. They have been running tours in Egypt for over a decade. Recently, they have developed their river cruise network in Upper Egypt in a very big manner adding multiple ships a year to a former fleet of but two.

Their tours start with a couple days in Cairo giving all the chance to see the necropoli of the Old Kingdom at Saqqara – just southwest of the city, the magnificent new Grand Egyptian Museum and, of course the pyramids of Giza. Then comes a short flight down to Luxor where all embark on one of their ships. Before sailing away, tours go to the nearby temples of Karnak and Luxor.

AWAY FROM CAIRO

If the river stays high enough – winter months can mean a long roundtrip bus ride instead – a short cruise goes downriver to the city of Qena where a tour goes to the Ptolemaic Temple of Hathor at Dendara. Back in Luxor, another tour takes in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings before getting back on the ship for a race up the Nile to get a position to push through the lock at Esna. Once through, after an overnight stop at Edfu and a morning tour on foot of the town and its small Ptolemaic temple, the ship heads upriver for a couple night stay in Aswan.

Here, on the next day, included tours take in the market of Aswan among other highlights while a somewhat pricey alternative takes you on a flight further south – after a short visit to the Aswan High Dam – To the magnificently recovered ruins of Abu Simbel. Back in Aswan, a morning tour takes in a stop at a Nubian village experiencing a different Nile as it existed as a swifter, islet laden river hearkening back to the days when there was still a First Cataract, a series of rapids which divided Egypt and Nubia further to the south. Another short bus and boat ride then takes you above the Lower Aswan Dam out to Agilika Island where, similar to Abu Simbel, though on a much smaller scale, the ruins of the Graeco-Roman Temple of Philae also resurrected from reservoir waters.

REVERSE COURSE

Back to the ship and downriver we go, stopping for the night at the riverport at Izbat Al Bayyarah for a visit to the Ptolemaic Temple of Kom Ombo dedicated to the crocodile God Sobek and the adjoining Crocodile Museum.the last day on the river, there is a stop at Edfu to take in one last Ptolemaic temple dedicated to the God Horus. Following is a return cruise back to Luxor. The next day, a return flight to Cairo with a free afternoon – in anticipation of onward flights – or alternative tours venture to either the Coptic Quarter of Cairo or to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization featuring a collection of mummies. The museum sits appropriately next door the vast City of the Dead, a huge Islamic cemetery with tombs looking like houses.

Cruising on the River

The company continues to have a couple ships per year built to keep up with an increasing demand. This year the Sekhmet and Ptah come online to join a fleet of eight others. The design of both are the same as six predecessors built at the Massara shipyard in Cairo. The ships are designed for 82 passengers. 360-degree rotatable propellors give them excellent control in the shifting conditions found in the river. There are two older ships – Ra and Antares – which will probably be sold and leave the fleet as more of the current ships come online. The eight-ship fleet makes Viking the largest Western operator of Nile cruise ships.

Viking runs the most modern and the fastest ship on the upper Nile. A speed limit exists on the river – something like 11 mph or 9.56 knots per hour if you’re more maritime oriented than I – but our ship – the Thoth – was capable of much more. We passed ship after ship on the way to gain a position to go through the one lock on this region of the Nile at Esna.

OUR SHIP

We sailed on the Thoth which joined the fleet in October 2025. The ship made for a very comfortable base as we made our way up and down the upper Nile visiting the many sites of ancient Egypt. Thoth was crewed by mostly local Egyptians all giving an excellent service. Tour groups are led by local Egyptian Egyptologists well-trained to fill in the fascinating historical contexts for the sites visited. They do so as well with the use of earpieces linked to their push to talk headsets. This proved very valuable when visiting many of the sites because of the crowds.

Food served was excellent – no pork as Egypt is predominately a Muslim country – with local cuisine and more west Euro-American food on tap, too. Beer and wine come with meals while alcohol purchasable at other times on board. Note that due to Egyptian laws, foreign alcohol is very expensive. Substituted normally, locally produced Egyptian spirits seemed a bit lacking, but a Nile cruise is unlike ocean cruises where alcohol seems to be the basic reason to be on board for many. You are simply too busy on these cruises to engage in serious drinking.

That busyness of the tour is forewarned at the start of the trip. The guides tell you, you probably need to take another vacation to recover from this one – early morning starts and full-day excursions; huge crowds at some sites; plus the possible effects of jet lag at the beginning of a tour.

Preparation

You see so much on a cruise combination like Viking offers that a little pre-trip reading helps tremendously. Without a little basic understanding of ancient Egypt, a common problem becomes “Templing out” much like “Churched out” can occur visiting Europe. The different stops on the tour roughly follow a chronological path.

Visits in Cairo feature on Old Kingdom sites – Saqqara, the Pyramids, the Sphinx – with a big overview of ancient Egypt in its entirety offered at the Grand Egyptian Museum. At Luxor, it is all about the New Kingdom when Luxor was Thebes serving as both the political and religious center of Egypt. After Luxor – with the exception of the trip to Abu Simbel – visits focus more upon Ptolemaic temples with Roman additions here and there.

Back in Cairo, we finished with the optional tour of the Coptic Quarter to farther along our understanding of Egypt’s more recent history.

BOOKS TO LIGHT THE WAY

Lot of books written cover Egyptology. I found Toby Wilkinson’s The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt to be a great place to begin to make more sense of what I was about to see in Egypt. Toby’s book could be a chore for some with 486 pages not including the notes. But even if you choose some simpler like Lonely Planet’s version of Egypt you are still looking at over 400 pages albeit with lots of pictures and smaller pages to quicken the pace. Wilkinson also writes a great book you can follow if heading down the Nile – The Nile: A Journey Downriver Through Egypt’s Past and Present.

A word should include scammers in Egypt. They are persistent and very annoying, especially near Cairo and the Pyramids. Simply too much easy money can come their way and the tourist police seem overwhelmed. There are many videos you can find on YouTube to better prepare yourself for the inundation such as this one.

Preparations made, it is time to head to the Land of the Pharaohs.