11 Days in Egypt: What You Can Actually See

Eleven days is the longest itinerary we run in any volume, and it is the first length where the two halves of the trip are properly balanced rather than one being squeezed onto the end of the other.

Seven or eight days of ancient Egypt, then three or four somewhere that requires nothing of you.

What eleven days covers

The full classic route, with nothing trimmed: three days in Cairo including the Pyramids, the Grand Egyptian Museum and either Saqqara or Islamic Cairo; a four-night Nile cruise taking in Philae, Kom Ombo and Edfu; and two full days in Luxor for both banks — Karnak and Luxor Temple on one side, the Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut's temple on the other.

There is usually room for Abu Simbel as well, and at eleven days it costs nothing else.

Then the coast. Six of our nine eleven-day trips finish at Hurghada, which is the shortest flight from Luxor, and the rest use Dahab or a second country.

The case for the second leg

This is not padding. Seven straight days of archaeological sites in Egyptian heat is genuinely tiring, and most people hit a wall somewhere around day six — the point at which one more colonnade stops registering.

Ending on the Red Sea means the last thing you remember is not exhaustion. It also means the trip contains two different holidays, which is why eleven days is the length families book most.

If a beach sounds wasted on you, use the days on the quiet Luxor sites instead — Medinet Habu, Deir el-Medina and the Valley of the Queens are the best-value days in Egypt and almost nobody has time for them.

What still gets left out

Alexandria and the Mediterranean coast, which continue to lose to everything else.

The Western Desert — the White Desert and Siwa — which needs its own trip rather than a slot in this one.

Middle Egypt, which almost nobody visits and which holds Abydos, the finest relief carving in the country.

The nine eleven-day trips we run