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Aswan

Olaf Tausch · File:Elephantine 02.JPG · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0) · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elephantine_02.JPG

Region · Egypt

Aswan

The Nile is at its most beautiful here, and the culture on its banks stops being Egyptian in the way the rest of the country is.

Best seasonOct – Apr
Ideal length2 nights, plus Abu Simbel
Main gatewayAswan International (ASW)
Getting aboutMotorboat, felucca and a driver
EntryVisa required for Indian passport holders
SuitsNile cruises · Nubian culture · slower days
Overview

Why Aswan

Aswan is where Egypt runs out. It was the ancient frontier and the quarry that supplied the granite for obelisks and colossi the length of the country, and it is still the point at which the landscape, the food, the music and the faces change. The river here splits around bare granite islands with the desert coming down to the water on both banks, which is why almost everyone who has been to both says Aswan is the more beautiful of the two Upper Egyptian cities. It is also the slower one: two nights here are spent on boats rather than in coaches, and the single long excursion — south to Abu Simbel — is the exception that has to be planned around.

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Cities & Places

Where to go in Aswan

Aswan town is the base for the governorate. Philae, the quarries, the dams, the islands and the Nubian villages are all reached from it and returned to the same day; only Abu Simbel is a full excursion.

Aswan
Aswan
Highlights

What Aswan holds

Five things, and unusually for Egypt, two of them are not monuments at all.

PhilaeThe temple of Isis, dismantled block by block and rebuilt on higher ground at Agilkia when the High Dam raised the water behind it. It is reached only by motorboat, which is half the pleasure of it, and it is one of the last places in the ancient world where the old religion was still being practised.
The Unfinished ObeliskLying in the northern granite quarry where it cracked, still attached to the bedrock on one side. Had it been raised it would have been the largest ever cut. What it actually gives you is the method — you can see the pounding marks and understand how the finished ones were made.
The river itselfFeluccas under sail, granite outcrops splitting the current, and the desert edge on both banks. A late-afternoon sail around Elephantine and the Botanical Island is the single thing most people remember about Aswan, and it costs an hour.
Nubian villagesOn the west bank and on Elephantine, with painted houses, a different language still spoken alongside Arabic, and a food and music tradition that is not the same as the rest of Egypt. Visited properly this is a conversation rather than a photo stop.
Abu SimbelTwo hundred and eighty kilometres south: Ramesses II’s temple cut into a cliff behind four seated colossi twenty metres high, and the whole thing moved uphill in the 1960s to escape the rising lake. It is a long day from Aswan and it is worth every hour of it.
When to go

When to visit Aswan

The hottest and driest place on any standard Egyptian itinerary. In winter that makes it the most comfortable; in summer it makes it the most demanding.

Oct – NovWarm, dry and clear, with the river at its best in the late afternoon. One of the two windows in which the whole day is usable.
Dec – FebPeak season and the most comfortable time to be here — warm days, genuinely cold before dawn on the Abu Simbel run, and the clearest light of the year. Book early; this is when the cruise boats are full.
Mar – AprWarm to hot, still excellent, and the tail of the khamsin season, when a southerly can put sand in the air for a day and take the distance out of every view.
May – SepVery hot. Aswan runs hotter than Luxor and well above forty degrees through the summer. Everything is done at the ends of the day, the felucca becomes the best part of it, and Abu Simbel by air rather than by road stops being a luxury.
Getting around

How to travel Aswan

A small town where the useful transport is a boat. The one thing that needs planning is the run south to Abu Simbel.

Arriving

  • Aswan International (ASW) takes domestic flights from Cairo and Luxor. Most Indian itineraries arrive by cruise boat from Luxor and leave by air, or the reverse.
  • Indian passport holders need a visa for Egypt. The electronic and consular routes both exist and their requirements change, so it is arranged as part of the booking. Final decisions rest with the relevant authorities.
  • The sleeper train from Cairo terminates here and takes most of a night and a morning. It is a way of travelling rather than a way of saving time.

On the water

  • Motorboats do the work taxis do elsewhere. Philae, Elephantine, the Nubian villages and the Botanical Island are all reached by one, and the crossing is a few minutes in each case.
  • A felucca is a sailing boat without an engine and moves at the speed of the wind. It is for the late afternoon and for nothing that has to be anywhere by a particular time.
  • Fares for both are agreed before you get in rather than after you get out. Your travel designer arranges the boats that matter; the sunset felucca is the one most people arrange on the spot.

South to Abu Simbel

  • By road it is about two hundred and eighty kilometres each way across open desert, and vehicles have traditionally left in the small hours to arrive for the cool of the morning. It is a long day and it is done in one.
  • By air it is under an hour each way, with a short ground window at the temples. It costs more and gives back most of the day, which for travellers with two nights in Aswan is usually the better trade.
  • Whichever way you go, go early. The façade faces east, the light is on it at dawn, and by mid-morning the site is both hotter and busier.
Suggested itinerary

How Aswan fits together

Day 1

The town and the water

Philae by motorboat in the morning, the Unfinished Obelisk and the High Dam after it, and a felucca around the islands as the light goes. This is the shape of the day whether you arrive by cruise boat or by air.

Day 2

Abu Simbel

South before dawn by road, or on the short flight, for the temples at first light when the façade is lit and the coaches have not built up. Back in Aswan by early afternoon with the rest of the day free — which, after that start, is the point.

Day 3

Nubia, slowly

The Nubian villages on the west bank and Elephantine, the Nubian Museum in the town — which is genuinely one of the best museums in Egypt and almost nobody goes — and the souq, which is a working market rather than a tourist one.

Onward

North by river, or home

Cruise boats turn round here and sail back to Luxor; most fly-in itineraries fly out. Aswan is the natural end of an Egypt trip rather than a place you pass through, which is worth knowing when the nights are being counted.

Continue Planning

Related to Aswan

The places in Aswan that have a guide of their own, and where to stay and eat once you are there.

AttractionPhilaeAttractionThe Unfinished ObeliskAttractionAbu SimbelHotelWhere to StayRestaurantWhere to Eat
FAQ

Common questions

Two, and three if Abu Simbel is going by road. One night covers Philae, the obelisk and a felucca and nothing else, which is the shape most cruise itineraries impose. The second night is what makes Abu Simbel possible without wrecking the trip either side of it. A third buys the Nubian villages and the Nubian Museum, which are the reason travellers who liked Aswan liked it more than Luxor.
Yes, and it is the rare case where that is not a matter of taste. The temple is cut straight into a cliff behind four seated figures of Ramesses II about twenty metres high, and in the 1960s the entire complex was cut into more than a thousand blocks and reassembled higher up the hill to save it from the rising lake — with the join lines almost impossible to find. Going by air gives most of the day back; going by road turns it into the day. Either way it is done at first light.
Luxor is monuments and Aswan is the river. Luxor has more standing antiquity than anywhere on earth and its days are structured around getting to it before the heat; Aswan has Philae and the obelisk and then stops asking anything of you. Aswan is also the point at which Nubian culture takes over — different language, different food, different music, different colours on the houses. Most itineraries do both, and travellers who have to choose one usually regret dropping Aswan.
No. The cruise is the most common way to arrive because it makes Edfu and Kom Ombo happen without a separate excursion, but Aswan is a perfectly good land destination and the hotels here are better than the cabins. Flying between Luxor and Aswan and staying ashore at both ends costs about the same number of nights and gives you far more of Aswan itself — which is the argument for it, since Aswan is where the cruise programme leaves least time.
Reasonably. Egyptian food is naturally friendly to it — ful, taameya, koshari, baba ghanoush, rice and bread are all everyday and all vegetarian — and Nubian cooking adds lentil and vegetable stews to that. What Aswan does not have is a developed Indian restaurant scene; the hotels will cook to a brief with notice, and telling your travel designer at booking works better than asking on arrival.
Half a morning or half an afternoon, and it is worth resisting the version that takes twenty minutes. A visit that is a boat across, a walk through the painted lanes, tea in a house and a conversation is a genuinely different experience from the rest of an Egyptian itinerary. A visit that is a boat across, a photograph and a crocodile in a tank is not, and both are sold.
Plan

Plan your Egypt journey

Tell us whether Abu Simbel is going by road or by air and how many nights you can give Aswan, and we will build the days so the river gets the light and the temples get the cool.

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