October 28, 2026
Towed in style – down the River Nile!
When I first visited stunning Luxor back in 2022 (on my first trip to Egypt), I heard that tourist boats ply the great Nile River on the Luxor–Aswan route, and that it comes highly recommended for exploring firsthand. Just four (far from boring) years later, and business has brought me back to the land of the pharaohs and, well, yes – dreams do come true! We combined work with play (my fave combo!) – and cruised the Nile on a riverboat! Direction: Aswan -> Luxor…
It was a simply delightful two-and-a-half-day river cruise!
So where’s all this, and what’s the route? Here are those cities on Google Maps:
And here they are on Yandex Maps.
Boat trips on rivers, seas, and oceans are, by definition, a wonderful idea. All the more so when they take in such sacred and historic places as the Nile River – the land of Ancient Egypt itself, one of the cradles of the civilization we all share. // Apologies for the unnecessary platitudes.
And there was some pretty nice scenery too:
The water’s actually pretty clean – so much so you can even swim in it (I duly did so a little earlier). The river’s a little silty and slightly yellowish (if you open your eyes underwater) – about the same as in practically any lowland river.
Every now and then some mysterious rocks poke out along the banks:
Occasionally bridges:
Boats of varying sizes:
Oh – here’s boat moseying along under sail! As it turned out, ours could do that too :)
But mostly it’s cruise ships like these that travel up and down the river:
All sorts of sights along the banks:
So what were we “sailing” on? This fine specimen of a riverboat:
Like I say, it had sails installed but not used (on our trip). The name on the side is in Arabic, but if you ask how it’s written in Latin letters, it comes out as Kazazian.
Now, when I said “fine specimen” – I really meant it! The whole boat was – oh my! – oh-so-luxurious, sleek, and positively sparkling with sumptuous opulence!
It was cool inside (as in not hot; you can see it’s the other cool too:), while outside it was around 35°C; yep, that’s what it’s like here in early October! It was just a shame we were here mostly for work with only a quick dash around the historical sites along the river.
The views at night are lovely too:
On we cruised…
At both the bow and stern of the boat the masts are somewhat incongruous with the level of luxury of the rest of the boat. Not sure why. Anyway, the sails were down as there was no tail wind…
Turns out all the boats are fitted with this “green” technology:
There we were on the great Nile River, our boat cruising along it, and all around us, along the banks, stood the most ancient of antiquities (or they were being restored, or still waiting to be discovered). Then all of a sudden it turned out that we weren’t on a motor ship at all, but on a five-star barge being towed by a tug :)
But what difference did it make to us? Actually, it was probably a good thing: having the “engine room” on an entirely separate vessel meant our floor deck didn’t shudder and shake every time the engine stopped and started, and it was quieter without it!
So we carried on sailing/cruising/being tugged along/whatever without a care for where the engine was. Besides, we were far from the only ones “in this boat”: here’s another tug tugging a sprawling barge full of tourists:
A little later we arrived at our destination. But that’s a tale for another post…
