Egypt & the Red Sea — 10 Nights

Into Cairo and checked in, with the evening free. This is a ten-night itinerary and there is no reason to schedule anything on the day of a long flight — the Nile corniche after dark is enough of a first impression, and the city will still be there tomorrow.

The Giza plateau early, before the heat builds and the coach parties arrive. The Great Pyramid was the tallest structure human beings had built for nearly four thousand years, and the panorama point behind the three of them is where the scale registers properly. The Sphinx and the valley temple sit below. Entering one of the pyramids is possible for anyone who wants the low, hot passage inside.

The Egyptian collection in the morning, which is more than a morning's worth however you approach it — the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza now holds the complete Tutankhamun material together for the first time. The afternoon is Khan el-Khalili, a market trading on the same ground since the fourteenth century, and the medieval quarter around it, which contains some of the finest Islamic architecture anywhere and is barely visited.

A short flight south to Luxor, built over ancient Thebes. Karnak fills the afternoon — a complex added to by pharaoh after pharaoh across roughly two millennia, with a hypostyle hall of a hundred and thirty-four columns, the tallest of them twenty-one metres high and originally painted. Luxor Temple in the town is at its best after dark when it is lit and quiet. Overnight in Luxor.

The west bank at first light. The Valley of the Kings holds sixty-three tombs cut down into the rock of a dry desert valley, three open on the standard ticket with the selection rotating to limit wear, and Seti I and Tutankhamun ticketed separately. Hatshepsut's temple at Deir el-Bahari rises in terraces out of the cliff behind. Board the cruise boat in the afternoon and begin the sail south.

Edfu in the morning, the most complete temple in Egypt — built for Horus between 237 and 57 BC and preserved to its roof because it lay buried in sand for centuries. Kom Ombo in the afternoon is the odd one: a perfectly symmetrical double temple with two of everything, shared between Sobek and Horus the elder, with a museum of mummified crocodiles beside it. The evening is on deck watching the bank go past.

Aswan, where the river runs between granite islands and the desert reaches the water on both sides — the most beautiful stretch of the Nile. Philae temple was moved to Agilkia island when the High Dam raised the lake and is reached by motorboat. The Unfinished Obelisk lies in the quarry where it split, showing how these monoliths were cut. A felucca at sunset closes the day.

A short flight east to the Red Sea coast, arriving early enough that the afternoon belongs to the water. The change of pace is abrupt and intended: after six days of monuments, heat and early starts, the first swim off a Red Sea beach is the point of the second half of this trip. The reef here begins close in, so a mask and snorkel from the shore is enough to see a great deal.

A full day on the reef. The Red Sea is enclosed, deep and very saline with almost no river silt entering it, which is why visibility regularly exceeds thirty metres — better than almost anywhere accessible without a liveaboard. More than a thousand fish species and around two hundred corals live here, a good number of them endemic. A boat trip out to an offshore reef, an introductory dive or a course are all arranged locally and paid directly.

Nothing is scheduled, and that is the design rather than an omission. Ten days of pyramids, temples and tombs earns a day with no obligation in it. The options are the reef again, a dive, the spa, or a chair and a book. Anyone who would rather keep moving can arrange a desert excursion or a boat trip locally; most people, by this point, do not.

A last morning on the coast before the transfer. Depending on the flight there is time for a final snorkel — the reef is at its clearest early, before the day's boats have been over it. Then the drive to the airport for your onward connection.