Three days in Aswan: where the Nile runs into granite
Two nights on the corniche, a morning at the island temple of Isis, and a last day sailing between the granite islands scattered across the river upstream of town.
- Length
- 3 days, 2 nights
- Where you stay
- Aswan
- Places
- 7 across 3 days
Aswan is where the Nile stops being a placid brown highway and starts breaking over granite. The First Cataract, the northernmost of the six rapids that made the river impassable upstream, is right here, and the boulders are still scattered across the channel between the islands. It made Aswan Egypt's southern frontier for most of its history and its quarry town for all of it: the granite in obelisks and sarcophagi across the country was cut here and floated north.
It is also the calmest place in Egypt to spend a few days. Aswan is smaller than Luxor, considerably less pushy, and built along a corniche with felucca sails going past at eye level. Nubian culture is the other half of the town's character, in the villages on Elephantine and Seheyl, in the food and in a museum built specifically because the High Dam drowned so much of Nubia.
Three days is enough for the temple, the town and the water, with the option of a long pre-dawn run south to Abu Simbel bolted onto the middle of it.
Highlights
- Philae, rebuilt block by block on a different island after the dams flooded the original
- The Unfinished Obelisk, cracked and abandoned in the quarry where it was being cut
- Sailing to Elephantine at the hour when the granite goes orange
- Kitchener's botanical island, a Victorian collection of trees in the middle of the Nile
- Nubian food and a rooftop over the cataract, at prices Luxor stopped charging years ago
Where to stay
Aswan, two nights
For most of pharaonic history this was the edge of Egypt. Elephantine, the island in the middle of the river, held the fort, the customs post and the temples of the ram-headed Khnum and the goddess Satet, who between them were held to control the flood. The nilometers cut into the island's rock face measured how high the river had risen, and the tax rate for the year was set from the reading.
The twentieth century changed the town twice. The first dam across the cataract, finished in 1902, was the largest masonry dam in the world when it was built and promptly proved too small. The High Dam upstream, finished in 1971, ended the flood, created a lake stretching into Sudan, and put Nubian villages and a dozen temples under water. The temples were cut up and moved. The villages were not, and their people were resettled, which is why the Nubian Museum exists and why so much of Aswan's identity is about somewhere that no longer exists.
Two nights is right for the sights below. Add a third if you want Abu Simbel without giving up a day of the town, and a fourth if you want to sail down to Luxor on a felucca or a dahabiya, which takes two to three days and is the best slow travel in Egypt.
Day by day
Day 1 in Aswan
The Nubian Museum and the corniche at sunset
Arrive and stay on foot. Trains come in at the station a few streets back from the river, and the airport is a taxi ride out of town, agreed in advance because there is no bus.
The Nubian Museum is at the southern end of town and it is much better than it needs to be. It opened in 1997, built jointly by Egypt and UNESCO as a direct answer to what the High Dam flooded, and it runs from prehistoric rock art through the Nubian pharaohs who ruled Egypt to the photographs of the relocation itself. Come here before the temples rather than after; the whole region makes more sense once you have seen it.
Then walk north along the corniche as the heat goes out of the day. The Ferial Gardens sit on the rocks at the southern end, above the river, and are the standard place to watch the sun drop behind the west bank with the feluccas tacking below. In the evening the souq behind the corniche is the liveliest street in town, long, covered, and much less aggressive than its equivalents further north.
- 14:00
Arrive and check in
NoteAgree the taxi fare from the airport before you get in. If you are staying on Elephantine, your guesthouse sends a boat to the ferry landing.
- 16:00
Nubian Museum
CultureTwo hours, air conditioned, and the best context you will get for anything else in Upper Egypt. The relocation section at the end is the one people remember.
- 18:00
Ferial Gardens
VisitA terraced garden on the rocks above the water at the southern end of the corniche. Free, and the sunset view is the reason to be there.
- 19:30
Dinner over the cataract
EatGrilled Nile fish sold by weight and Nubian stews are the local order, and the terraces on the west bank and Elephantine have the view back at the town.
With more time: The Fatimid cemetery, a field of crumbling mud-brick domed tombs, is a ten minute walk from the museum and gets almost no visitors. For a bigger walk, the modern Coptic cathedral on the southern skyline is open to visitors and the view from its steps takes in the whole town.
Day 2 in Aswan
The Unfinished Obelisk and Philae
Start in the granite quarries on the southern edge of town, where the Unfinished Obelisk still lies in the bedrock it was being cut out of. Had it been finished it would have stood about 42 metres and weighed close to 1,200 tonnes, bigger than any obelisk ever raised, and the only reason it is here is that a crack opened along its length and the work was abandoned. You can see the marks left by the pounding stones and the trenches cut down either side. Half an hour, and it explains more about Egyptian engineering than any temple does.
Then south to the boat landing for Philae. The temple of Isis stood on Philae Island until the dams put it under water for most of each year, and in the 1970s it was dismantled and rebuilt on higher ground on neighbouring Agilkia, which was reshaped to match the original island. The boat across takes ten minutes and the approach, with the pylons rising straight out of the water, is the best arrival at any site in Egypt.
Isis was worshipped here long after the rest of Egypt had turned to Christianity, and the last dated hieroglyphic inscription anywhere was cut on this island in the fourth century AD. You can see where Coptic monks later carved crosses over the reliefs and turned a hall into a church. On the eastern side of the island, Trajan's Kiosk stands open to the sky, fourteen columns and an unfinished roof, and is the building everybody photographs from the boat without knowing its name.
- 08:00
Unfinished Obelisk
OtherOpen early, in the old quarry above the town. Combine it with Philae in one taxi hire rather than making two trips.
- 10:00
Philae Temple
NatureBoats leave from the Marina landing and are priced per boat, so waiting to share with others cuts the cost. Two hours on the island is comfortable.
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- 12:15
Trajan's Kiosk
HistoricOn the same island, five minutes from the main temple, facing the water on the eastern side. Go before you get back on the boat.
- 13:30
Late lunch back in town
EatThe local places a street back from the corniche do kofta, kebab and clay-pot stews for a fraction of what the riverfront terraces charge.
With more time: The same taxi circuit can take in the High Dam, which is impressive as a fact and dull as a sight, and the far better cluster of rescued temples beside it: Kalabsha, moved here from a valley now under the lake, along with the small Roman Kiosk of Qertassi and the rock-cut Beit el-Wali of Ramses II. Almost nobody goes, and you need to arrange the boat across at the landing.
Day 3 in Aswan
Elephantine and the botanical island
The last morning belongs to the river. The public ferry to Elephantine costs a few pounds and lands you in the Nubian villages of Siou and Koti, where the lanes are too narrow for anything with wheels and the houses are painted in flat blue, ochre and pink. At the southern end of the island are the ruins of the old town: the temples of Khnum and Satet, the nilometer staircases going down to the water, and the small Aswan museum in the middle of it.
From there, take a boat across the narrow channel to Kitchener's Island. Lord Kitchener was given it in the 1890s and planted it with everything he could import, and it is now a botanical garden of nearly seven hectares: royal palms down the spine of the island, flame trees, ficus and about as much shade as exists in Upper Egypt. It takes an hour to walk and most people stay longer.
Then back for lunch on the corniche before a train or a plane. If you have the whole afternoon, this is the stretch of river to spend it on: a felucca out among the granite islands of the cataract for a couple of hours, sailing rather than motoring, which is how everything moved here for thousands of years.
- 09:00
Elephantine Island: Nubian Villages & Aswan Museum
NatureTake the public ferry rather than a private boat. The village lanes and the ruins at the southern tip are both worth an hour, and the museum is included in the site ticket.
- 11:30
Aswan Botanical Gardens
NatureA short hop by motorboat from Elephantine or the corniche. Boatmen wait at the jetty and the price is per boat, agreed before you board.
- 13:00
Lunch on the corniche
EatFish by weight, grilled to order, at one of the small places near the market. Order the crab soup if it is on.
With more time: Two half days on the west bank if your train is late. The Monastery of St Simeon is a seventh century fortress-monastery in the desert, reached by boat and then a walk or a camel, and it was destroyed by Saladin's forces in 1173. Above it is the domed mausoleum of the Aga Khan, which is closed inside but sits in the best position in Aswan. Further south, Seheyl Island has a Nubian village and a hillside covered in over two hundred rock inscriptions, including the Famine Stela.
Before you go
Where to stay
The corniche in town keeps you next to the souq, the ferry landings and the restaurants, and most of the mid-range hotels are along it. Ask for a river-facing room; the difference in price is small and the difference in the stay is not.
The other option is a Nubian guesthouse on Elephantine or on the west bank, painted in blocks of colour, reached by boat, with no traffic at all. It is the more memorable choice and it costs less. The trade-off is that every dinner in town involves a ferry.
The old resort hotels on the islands and the cataract sell the view rather than the room. They are worth a drink on the terrace at sunset whether or not you sleep in one.
Getting around
The town is small enough to walk end to end. Everything on the islands or the west bank means a boat: the public ferries cost a few pounds, and a private motorboat or felucca is negotiated, usually starting at about twice the sensible price.
For Philae, the Unfinished Obelisk and the dams, take a taxi or a tuk-tuk and hire it for the whole circuit rather than piece by piece. Agree the route, the waiting time and the total before you set off. InDrive works here and takes the argument out of it.
Aswan is the southern terminus of the Egyptian railway. Trains north take three to four hours to Luxor and about ten more to Cairo, and the sleeper from Cairo arrives in the morning.
Abu Simbel
The great rock temples of Ramses II are about 280 kilometres south, close to the Sudanese border, and are a long day trip from Aswan: typically a three hour drive each way starting in the dark, an hour or two at the site, and back by early afternoon. There are also short flights from Aswan airport.
It is worth the misery of the alarm clock. Both temples were cut into a cliff, then sawn into blocks in the 1960s and rebuilt sixty metres higher on an artificial hill, to keep them above the rising water behind the High Dam. The four seated colossi at the entrance are twenty metres high, and twice a year, in late February and late October, the sunrise still reaches the statues at the back of the sanctuary.
Book through your hotel the day before. Whether or not you go decides how much of the middle of this trip is left standing, so decide early.
Season and manners
Aswan is the hottest of the main Egyptian destinations and summer here is severe: the town shuts down through the middle of the day and the temples are unbearable. November to February is close to perfect, warm and dry, with cold evenings on the water.
The souq is the one place to keep a hand on your pockets, where sellers work in pairs with a scarf in one hand. Otherwise the hassle level is low by Egyptian standards, and a straight no is generally taken as a no. Nubian villages open their doors to visitors, but the houses are homes rather than exhibits, so ask before photographing anybody.
Aswan rewards doing less. The town is small, the boats are slow, and the temples want a morning between them rather than a schedule, which leaves whole afternoons to sit somewhere high up over the water with tea in front of you.
If one thing sticks, it will be the light on the granite in the last hour before sunset, when the boulders in the cataract turn the colour of the sails going past them.
Or make it a longer trip
These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Is Aswan worth three days?
- Yes, though it is a slower three days than Luxor or Cairo. The sights here are fewer and further apart, and half the pleasure is on the water rather than at a monument. If you are also doing Abu Simbel, three nights rather than two stops the trip becoming one long drive with a temple at each end.
- How do I get to Abu Simbel?
- By road, about three hours each way, in a convoy of minibuses that leaves before dawn, or by a short flight from Aswan airport. Almost every hotel books the road trip. Take the earliest departure you are offered: the site is at its best before the coaches, and the drive back is much less pleasant in the afternoon heat.
- Aswan or Luxor, if I can only do one?
- Luxor, if you came to Egypt for the monuments: the density of what survives there is unmatched. Aswan, if you want to enjoy yourself: it is calmer, the hassle is far milder, the food is better value, and it has the Nile at its most beautiful. A lot of people do both and prefer Aswan without expecting to.
- Can I sail from Aswan to Luxor?
- Yes, and it is the best way to spend the extra days. Feluccas run downstream over two or three nights, sleeping on deck, with a support boat for meals; dahabiyas are the comfortable version with cabins. Both stop at Kom Ombo and Edfu, which the trains rush past.
- How do I get here from Cairo or Luxor?
- Trains run up the Nile from both: three to four hours from Luxor, and about thirteen hours from Cairo, which is why the Cairo run is an overnight sleeper. Flights connect Aswan with Cairo and Luxor. Aswan is the southern end of the railway, so nothing goes further.