Egypt and Jordan in 12 Days

Breakfast at the hotel, then out to Giza with your guide. You begin at the Great Pyramid of Khufu and work along to Khafre and Menkaure, then the Valley Temple, built of granite and alabaster, and the Sphinx at the end of Khafre's causeway. Lunch is at a local restaurant nearby. The afternoon goes to the Grand Egyptian Museum: the Grand Hall with its Ramses II colossus, the Grand Staircase, the main galleries, and the two Tutankhamun rooms holding all 5,398 objects from the tomb.

Overnight: Cairo
Included visits: Great Pyramid, Khafre and Menkaure pyramids, Valley Temple, Sphinx, Grand Egyptian Museum
Meals: Breakfast, lunch
Optional experiences: Entry inside one of the pyramids; camel or horse ride across the plateau; Saqqara and Memphis as a half-day extension
Important notes: The GEM runs on timed entry and needs two hours minimum. Almost no shade at Giza — hat and water.

You check out after breakfast and transfer to Cairo Airport for the flight south, about an hour. Your representative meets you at Luxor Airport and drives you to the mooring, where you board and have lunch. The afternoon covers the East Bank: Karnak, enlarged by successive pharaohs across two thousand years, where the Hypostyle Hall's 134 columns still hold traces of paint high up; then Luxor Temple on the corniche. Dinner is on board.

Overnight: On board in Luxor
Included visits: Karnak Temple, Luxor Temple
Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Optional experiences: Luxor Temple again after dark, when it is lit; the sound and light show at Karnak
Important notes: Domestic baggage allowance is lower than international. Karnak is large and mostly unshaded.

Breakfast on board, then across the river. Three tombs in the Valley of the Kings come first, cut deep into the limestone with painted ceilings intact after three thousand years. Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari follows, terraced into the cliff and built in the fifteenth century BC, then the two seated Colossi of Memnon. Lunch is served as the ship casts off for Edfu, with dinner on board.

Overnight: On board
Included visits: Valley of the Kings, Temple of Hatshepsut, Colossi of Memnon
Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Optional experiences: Dawn hot-air balloon over the West Bank, before the tour; the tombs of Tutankhamun and Seti I, ticketed separately
Important notes: Uneven ground and warm, still air inside the tombs — closed shoes are worth wearing.

After breakfast a horse-drawn carriage takes you into Edfu for the Temple of Horus, a Ptolemaic building with its roof and enclosure walls both intact — the most complete pharaonic temple standing anywhere in Egypt. The ship sails on to Kom Ombo, where the double temple stands directly above the riverbank: twin entrances and twin sanctuaries, one side for Sobek the crocodile god and the other for Haroeris, Horus the Elder. Lunch is on board as you continue towards Aswan, with dinner following.

Overnight: On board
Included visits: Temple of Horus at Edfu, Temple of Sobek and Haroeris at Kom Ombo
Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Important notes: Small notes are useful for the carriage drivers at Edfu.

Breakfast on board, then ashore. The Unfinished Obelisk lies on its side in the granite quarry where a flaw opened along its length; had it been raised it would have been the largest ever cut. A motorboat then carries you across to Agilkia Island for Philae Temple, dedicated to Isis and rebuilt here block by block when the dams raised the water. Lunch and dinner are on board, with the afternoon free.

Overnight: On board in Aswan
Included visits: Unfinished Obelisk, Philae Temple
Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Optional experiences: Abu Simbel by road or short flight, booked in advance; a felucca sail around Elephantine Island at sunset; the Nubian villages by motorboat
Important notes: Philae involves a short boat crossing at each end.

Breakfast on board, then disembarkation with your luggage. Your representative transfers you to Aswan Airport for the flight north, about an hour and a half, and meets you again in Cairo to drive you to your hotel. The rest of the day is free.

Overnight: Cairo
Included visits: None
Meals: Breakfast
Optional experiences: A half-day of Coptic and Islamic Cairo with Khan el-Khalili; a Nile dinner cruise
Important notes: Lunch and dinner are not included today.

The Egypt half ends after breakfast. You check out and transfer to Cairo International Airport for the flight to Amman, roughly an hour and a half. Your representative meets you at Queen Alia Airport, helps with the entry formalities and drives you into the city, about forty minutes. The rest of the day is free.

Overnight: Amman
Included visits: None
Meals: Breakfast
Optional experiences: An evening walk through downtown Amman, the Citadel hill and the Roman theatre
Important notes: Confirm your Jordanian visa arrangements with us before travel — the Jordan Pass, bought online in advance, waives the visa fee for most visitors and covers Petra, Jerash, Umm Qais and Ajloun entry.

A northbound day, starting with the two-hour drive to Umm Qais — ancient Gadara, one of the Decapolis cities — where a terrace of black basalt looks out over the Jordan Valley, the Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee. Jerash follows: a Roman provincial city never built over, with its oval forum, colonnaded cardo, Nymphaeum and Temple of Artemis standing where they were left. Ajloun Castle closes the day, an Ayyubid fortress raised in the 1180s to watch the iron mines and the routes below. Lunch is included.

Overnight: Amman
Included visits: Umm Qais, Jerash, Ajloun Castle
Meals: Breakfast, lunch
Important notes: A long day with three sites and a good deal of driving. Umm Qais is exposed and the wind comes up in the afternoon — take a layer.

After breakfast you drive southwest to Mount Nebo, the ridge where Moses is said to have looked across to the land he would not enter, with the valley, the Dead Sea and, on a clear morning, the hills beyond laid out below the terrace. Madaba is ten minutes on, where the floor of St George's Church holds a sixth-century mosaic map of the Holy Land in more than two million tesserae. The road then drops to the Dead Sea, four hundred metres below sea level, where the salt concentration makes floating effortless and the mineral mud along the shore is what the resorts are built on. You return to Amman in the evening.

Overnight: Amman
Included visits: Mount Nebo, Madaba, Dead Sea
Meals: Breakfast, lunch
Important notes: Bring a swimsuit and flip-flops — the shoreline is sharp underfoot. Do not shave that morning, keep the water out of your eyes, and twenty minutes in is plenty. Modest dress at the church and the memorial.

An early start for the drive south, roughly two and a half hours on the Desert Highway. It is about seven hundred metres from the visitor centre to the mouth of the Siq, then a little over a kilometre through the gorge itself — walls running up eighty metres, narrowing in places until the sky is a line overhead — before the Treasury opens at the far end. Your guide covers the main sites over a half day: the Street of Facades, the theatre cut into the rock, the Royal Tombs along the eastern cliff. You walk back out through the Siq and return to Amman in the evening.

Overnight: Amman
Included visits: Petra
Meals: Breakfast, lunch
Optional experiences: The climb to the Monastery, around 800 rock-cut steps; the Al Khubtha trail to the viewpoint above the Treasury; horse or golf-cart assistance along the approach
Important notes: Five hours in the vehicle plus a full day on your feet, with the return walk uphill. Proper shoes, a hat and more water than you expect to need.

Breakfast at your hotel, then a transfer to Queen Alia Airport timed around your flight, with margin for the drive and the airport queues.

Included visits: None
Meals: Breakfast
Important notes: Allow three hours before an international departure.