Grand Egypt + Abu Simbel — 9 Nights

Into Cairo and checked in, with the evening free. Nothing is asked of the first day beyond arriving — Cairo is a city of more than twenty million and the traffic alone takes adjusting to. If you want a first look, the Nile corniche after dark is the easiest way to take it.

The Giza plateau from early, when the light is low and the coaches have not arrived. The Great Pyramid held the record as the tallest human structure for nearly four millennia and the panorama point behind the group is where that becomes real rather than abstract. The Sphinx and the valley temple sit below the plateau. There is time to go inside one of the pyramids for anyone who wants it — hot, low and airless, and not for everyone.

Saqqara in the morning, which is the older half of the story: Djoser's step pyramid of around 2670 BC is the earliest monumental stone building in the world, and the mastaba tombs around it carry painted reliefs of daily life that the royal tombs never bothered with. The museum in the afternoon — the Grand Egyptian Museum now shows the whole Tutankhamun collection together, which had never been possible before. Overnight in Cairo.

South by air to Luxor, built over ancient Thebes and holding more of the ancient world in one place than anywhere else. Karnak takes the afternoon: extended by successive pharaohs over roughly two thousand years, with a hypostyle hall of a hundred and thirty-four columns, the tallest twenty-one metres. Luxor Temple in the town centre is better after dark when it is lit and the crowds have gone. Overnight in Luxor.

Over to the west bank at first light. The Valley of the Kings holds sixty-three known tombs cut into a dry valley, three of them open on the standard ticket and rotating to spread the wear; Seti I and Tutankhamun need separate tickets. Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari rises in three terraces straight out of the cliff and is architecturally the most modern-looking thing in Egypt. Board the boat in the afternoon.

Edfu, which is the best-preserved temple in the country because it spent centuries buried under sand — built between 237 and 57 BC for Horus, complete to its roof, and with inscriptions that told Egyptologists how the rituals actually worked. The rest of the day is on deck as the river moves south past sugar cane, water buffalo and villages that are still reached by boat.

Kom Ombo, which is unlike any other Egyptian temple in being exactly symmetrical — two entrances, two colonnades, two sanctuaries, one half for Sobek the crocodile god and the other for Horus the elder. The crocodile museum beside it holds mummified crocodiles recovered from the site. The afternoon is the sail toward Aswan, which is the most beautiful stretch of the river on the whole cruise.

Aswan, where granite islands split the river and the desert comes down to the water on both sides. Philae temple was taken apart and rebuilt on Agilkia island when the High Dam raised the water, and it is reached by motorboat. The Unfinished Obelisk still lies in the quarry where it cracked, and it shows exactly how these things were cut. A felucca under sail in the late afternoon is the thing to do here.

South before dawn to Abu Simbel, near the Sudanese border — four colossi of Ramesses II twenty metres high at the entrance to a temple cut straight into the cliff around 1264 BC, with a smaller temple for Nefertari beside it. The whole complex was cut into more than a thousand blocks and moved sixty metres up the hill between 1964 and 1968 to save it from the rising lake, and the join lines are almost impossible to find.

A last morning by Lake Nasser before the flight north. Abu Simbel at first light with almost nobody there is worth stepping out for even if you saw it yesterday, and the sound-and-light show, where it is running, tells the story of the relocation. Then the transfer for your domestic flight and onward connection.