12 Days Egypt Tour: Alexandria, Nile & Red Sea

An early start brings you to the Giza pyramids before the crowds, with time to walk the site properly rather than following a fixed loop. The afternoon moves to the Grand Egyptian Museum, where your Egyptologist focuses on specific collections aligned with your interests instead of attempting the entire building in one visit.

A drive north brings you to Alexandria, a city that feels entirely unlike the rest of Egypt. The Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa descend three levels into bedrock, blending Egyptian, Greek, and Roman funerary traditions in a single structure. The evening belongs to the corniche, where Alexandria's Mediterranean character is most apparent.

Kom el Dikka preserves Egypt's only well-known Roman amphitheatre alongside villas and mosaics, a reminder of how thoroughly Roman this city once was. In the afternoon, the Cavafy Museum, the preserved apartment of the Greek poet who lived here for twenty-five years, offers a literary counterpoint to archaeology. The return drive to Cairo follows.

In Luxor, you begin on the west bank with Medinet Habu, whose painted reliefs of the Sea Peoples' invasion retain colour that has survived three thousand years. The Ramesseum follows, where the fallen colossus of Ramesses II inspired Shelley's poem about the impermanence of power, a fitting reflection for a solo traveller.

The Valley of the Queens holds the tomb of Nefertari, widely regarded as the most beautifully painted burial chamber to survive from the ancient world. Nearby, Howard Carter's restored house preserves the archaeologist's equipment and photographs from the 1922 discovery, connecting the tombs you have just visited to the modern history of their rediscovery.

Philae, relocated stone by stone to save it from rising waters, remains one of Egypt's most atmospheric temples, approached only by boat. The Unfinished Obelisk in Aswan's granite quarries lies exactly where ancient workers abandoned it, offering rare insight into how these monuments were actually carved and moved.

An early departure south brings you to Abu Simbel, where Ramesses II's colossal temples were cut from a cliff face and later relocated in one of the twentieth century's greatest engineering rescues. Arriving before the main tour groups means the four twenty-metre statues can be experienced in relative quiet, which fundamentally changes the encounter.

A short flight carries you from ancient monuments to the Red Sea coast. The afternoon is entirely unstructured, whether that means swimming, reading by the water, or simply doing nothing at all after eight days of intensive exploration. This is the journey's deliberate change of pace.

A full day with no fixed schedule. For divers, the Red Sea offers some of the world's clearest water and healthiest reefs, with a dive on the SS Thistlegorm wreck available for certified divers. For everyone else, the day is simply open, an increasingly rare luxury in structured travel.

An early flight returns you to Cairo with the full day ahead. Al-Muizz Street holds the highest concentration of medieval Islamic architecture anywhere in the world, and walking it slowly, stopping at Sultan Hassan Mosque and Bab Zuweila, provides a fitting final chapter after two weeks spanning pharaonic, Greek, Roman, and Islamic Egypt.

Your final morning is yours, unhurried and unscheduled. A private transfer takes you to the airport whenever suits your flight, closing twelve days that covered nearly the full span of Egyptian history and geography.