Exploring Egypt's timeless wonders with AmaWaterways

Travel Weekly

11 hours ago

Entering one of the 65 known tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings is a little spooky, a little claustrophobic -- and way cool. Tunneled for hundreds of feet into desert limestone by hand, the 3,000-year-old tombs are a gift from antiquity.
Highly decorated passages quarried into the limestone lead to a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst
Down, down we go, our group on excursion from AmaWaterways' AmaLilia, the line's newest Nile riverboat. The colors on the walls are amazingly vivid, sealed for millennia underground in one of the most arid climates in the world.
We pass images of vultures and cobras protecting the pharaoh buried within. Hieroglyphics cover every surface, baffling to all but the experts. One of the smaller tombs is that of the famous King Tutankhamen, a mere 28 feet below ground. The nearly intact chambers, uncovered in 1922, were filled with 5,398 funerary items, many of solid gold.
Such are the rewards of a cruise up the world's longest river. At every turn, guests can see the grand stone monuments produced by a civilization that existed 4,500 years before Columbus sailed for America.
Our eight-day cruise hit many highlights: the extensive temples at Karnak and Luxor; the colossal statues of Ramses II guarding Abu Simbel; and perhaps the most iconic icon of them all, the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Unlike for some on our trip, the Nile was not on my bucket list of travel destinations. But I would be the poorer for not having seen it, and I would call this sailing a prime example of "the thinking person's cruise," as one cruise executive has dubbed river voyages.
The Philae Temple was dismantled and relocated after its original island location was flooded by construction of the Aswan High Dam. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst
Seeing Egypt by water has several advantages. Uniquely, almost every can't-miss site in Egypt is concentrated along the Nile's banks. Moving from temple to temple by ship is easier and safer than traveling the Egyptian highways.
Breezes off the water can cool temperatures that reached 110 degrees on several days of our mid-April cruise.
Not to be overlooked is the sailing itself. Each morning, I'd greet the placid greenish river as we motored quietly along a shoreline of marsh grasses, date palms, low mud-brick compounds and minarets.
The meandering channel took us first close to one bank, then the other, and then past islands where seemingly endless rows of banana trees are cultivated beneath perpetually blue skies. Waterfowl and small green and blue wooden boats rowed by local fishermen animated the surface.
Now and then we'd pass a cement embankment, a clustered village, a pump station or a factory, but mostly it is a bucolic scene, both timeless and Old Testament familiar.
The ancient temple at Abu Simbel in southern Egypt features four 70 foot tall statues of Ramses II. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst
But perhaps the top benefit we enjoyed was the expertise of our two Egyptologists, Marwa Abbas and Randa Abdel Wahab, who sailed with us and without whom we would have no clue about what we were seeing.
I think that Wahab's cry of "yalla, yalla," (let's go!) after each viewing pause may be my most enduring memory from the cruise.
Our group was mostly couples in their 60s and older, about half Canadian, half American with a few Australians in the mix. The ship carries 82 passengers on four decks with two restaurants, a lounge, a small gym, a massage room, hair salon and a shaded sundeck with a pool.
I was able to tour the AmaLilia's sister ship, the AmaDahlia, while in Luxor and found the AmaLilia to be a little brighter and more contemporary, and its dinner-only Chef's Table restaurant is mostly enclosed rather than outdoors.
It is one of the newest of about 180 ships of similar design on the Nile, most sailing for brands unknown in North America, the AmaLilia's hotel director told me.
The itinerary begins with a three-night stay in Cairo (at the St. Regis Cairo), which affords a day at Giza (including a visit to the Grand Egyptian Museum); a day visiting Saladin's massive Citadel and the older Egyptian Museum where King Tut's treasures are stored; and a fascinating half day in Coptic Cairo seeing Roman-era churches and a synagogue.
The Temple of Luxor was one of the most venerated sites in ancient Egypt. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst
After a flight to Luxor, guests have seven days on the water before a final afternoon in Cairo, which we used to experience the chaos of the sprawling Khan el-Khalili street market. Except for that self-led excursion, we had a discretely armed security officer everywhere we went.
Food onboard the ship is about half Egyptian, half Western, paired with Egyptian wines. I didn't love every Egyptian item I tried but found at least half of it to be really good; a sauced pasta-and-chickpeas dish surprised me with its flavor. The crew is eager to show off their national cuisine.
Evening entertainment included a screening of the 1978 film "Death on the Nile," a troupe of Nubian dancers and a hilarious contest in which guests were mummified in toilet paper.
Ama did a great job with transfers, providing a VIP passage through customs/passport control on the front end and a similar shepherding on the back end for a 4:45 a.m. flight home.