- Philae and the Unfinished Obelisk both open at 7 a.m. and take last visitors at 3 p.m.
- The High Dam is 20.6 km from the hotel, about 20 min without traffic, and the Unfinished Obelisk 18.7 km from the dam.
- Abu Simbel is 283.4 km from Aswan, about 3 h 26 min without traffic, with no other stops on the way.
- On 22 February and 22 October the sun reaches the statues in Abu Simbel's inner sanctuary.
- The Nubian Museum, 2.6 km from the hotel, also opens on Thursday and Friday evenings, 6 to 9 p.m.
The main things to do in Aswan are to take the boat to Philae Temple, see the High Dam and the Unfinished Obelisk, ride a motorboat to a Nubian village, visit the Nubian Museum, sail a felucca around Elephantine Island and make the long drive south to Abu Simbel. Edfu and Kom Ombo, and even Luxor, fit in a day on the road north.
Aswan sits at the First Cataract, where a belt of granite turns the Nile into rapids. It was the southern frontier of pharaonic Egypt, facing Nubia, and its quarries supplied granite for many ancient monuments (Britannica).
Philae and the river
Take the boat to Philae Temple
Philae's temple of Isis, begun by Ptolemy II, was one of the last ancient Egyptian temples still in use, until the reign of Justinian I; the last dated hieroglyphic inscription was carved there in 394 AD. Submerged behind the old Aswan Dam, the temples were moved to the nearby island of Agilkia and reopened in 1980. You reach the island by motorboat, included on our Philae Temple by boat tour and on both High Dam tours.
See Philae lit at night
On our Philae sound and light show evening you take the boat to the island and walk among the lit columns while the legend of Isis, Osiris and Horus is told with lights and narration. Philae by day or at the show helps you choose.
Sail a felucca around Elephantine Island
A felucca is a traditional wooden sailboat. Our felucca sail is an afternoon of about 2 to 3 hours between the islands of the first cataract, around Elephantine Island to the botanical garden on Kitchener's Island, with the garden entrance included. The ruins on Elephantine are part of UNESCO's Nubian Monuments and have their own ticket (table below), but they are not on our tours.
Visit a Nubian village
In the far south, Nubians differ culturally and ethnically from other Egyptians, and Nubian languages, among them Nobiin and Kenzi, are still spoken along the Nile (Britannica). When the High Dam created Lake Nasser, more than 60,000 Nubians were resettled. Our Nubian village tour goes by motorboat through the islands and the cataract to Gharb Soheil, a village on the west bank, to visit a traditional Nubian home and meet a local family. See Nubian villages in Aswan for the background.
The dam, the quarry and the museum
Stand on the High Dam
The Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970, is 111 meters high with a crest 3,830 meters long, and holds back Lake Nasser, which backs up the Nile about 320 km in Egypt (Britannica). From the dam you look over the lake and the Nile. It is 20.6 km from the hotel, about 20 min without traffic, on our High Dam and Philae Temple tour.
See the Unfinished Obelisk
The Unfinished Obelisk still lies in one of the ancient granite quarries; work stopped because of flaws and cracks in the stone (Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities). UNESCO notes that these quarries are the basis of what is known about ancient Egyptian quarrying. The obelisk is 18.7 km from the High Dam, about 19 min without traffic, on our High Dam, Unfinished Obelisk and Philae tour.
Visit the Nubian Museum
The Nubian Museum opened in 1997, clad in local sandstone and pink granite in the manner of Nubian architecture; it shows thousands of objects on Egyptian and Nubian civilization over three floors, and its garden holds a reconstructed Nubian house. Besides its daytime hours, it opens on Thursday and Friday evenings from 6 to 9 p.m. It is 2.6 km from the hotel, about 3 min without traffic, on our Nubian Museum tour.
