17 Day Uncover Egypt and Jordan Small Group Tour

Upon arrival at Cairo Airport you will be met by a MyHoliday2 representative before you get to immigration who will assist you through airport customs & formalities. Transfer to Hotel for check-in and overnight. The remainder of the day at leisure.

MEALS: None

OVERNIGHT: Barcelo Hotel, Cairo

Breakfast and pick-up to explore Cairo and visit the famous Pyramids. The Great Pyramid of Cheops which was built by manual labor, is the largest of the three main Pyramids and is the only survivor of the Seven Great Wonders of the Ancient World, the Pyramid of Chephren, which is the best preserved, and the Pyramid of Mycerinus. Nearby see the Sphinx, a marvellous sight carved out of a natural rocky outcrop, the lion’s body stretching 45m, with its paws 15m long. We will visit the Papyrus Institute and learn how paper was made in ancient times followed by shopping in the Papyrus Museum, perfume factory and jewellery shop. Lunch in local restaurant. Visit The Grand Egyptian Museum, the oldest archaeological museum in the Middle East and houses the largest collection of Pharaonic antiquities in the world. The museum displays an extensive collection spanning from the Predynastic Period to the Greco-Roman Era.

MEALS: Breakfast

OVERNIGHT: Barcelo Hotel, Cairo

Breakfast in hotel and pick-up to explore Alexandria. The majority of Alexandria’s surviving monuments are its necropoleis (cemeteries). The most impressive of these is the Roman-era Kom al-Shoqafa near the Serapeum. This contains Greek-style catacombs and triclinia burials, a chapel, and a banqueting area that was used during funerals. Paintings and reliefs gracefully combine ancient Egyptian and Greek beliefs and artistic traditions. Visit Pompey’s Pillar. It stands immediately next to the site of the Serapeum, the principal temple of Sarapis, the national god of ancient Egypt during this period. It was unfortunately destroyed when the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius outlawed paganism in 391 AD. Lunch in a seafood restaurant. Visit Montazah garden before driving back to your hotel in Cairo.

MEALS: Breakfast

OVERNIGHT: Barcelo Hotel, Cairo

Today after breakfast we start exploring ancient Islamic & Coptic Cairo. Visit the citadel of Salah el din – When in Cairo, it is impossible to miss the Salah El Din Citadel, one of the world’s greatest monuments to medieval warfare. Resembling a typical early medieval fortress, with large imposing gateways, towers and high defending walls, the Citadel is one of Cairo’s main attractions and probably the most popular non-pharaonic monument in the Egyptian capital. The prominent fortress houses three mosques – of which the impressive Mohamed Ali Mosque – a carriage museum, a military museum, and a garden museum, just to name a few, and they are all worth a visit.

After all this history in the morning you will enjoy lunch in a local restaurant.

Copts who form the majority of Egyptian Christians are followers of the Coptic Orthodox Church and considered to be part of the descendants of Ancient Egyptians and one of the first peoples to convert to Christianity. In fact, the word “Copt” derives from the Arabic word “Qibt” – or “Gibt” – which derives from the Greek word “Egyptos” meaning “Egypt.” The Ancient Egyptian root of the word was “Hikaptah” (Ha-Ka-Ptah), the name Memphis was known by in 3100 BC at the time when it was the first capital of Ancient Egypt. The Coptic Church traces its spiritual history back to St. Mark, the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark, and considers him to be the founding father of the Coptic Orthodox Church. The history of the Coptic Church is tied to the history of Christian monasticism. The ancient tradition of monasticism continues to be practiced in Egypt and offers a great opportunity to visit Coptic monasteries, such as the monastery of St Simeon in Aswan, St Anthony and St Paul Monasteries in the Red Sea mountains, and Deir Al-Kashef

Monastery, an early Coptic monastery in the Western Desert. Some of Egypt’s churches also rank among the oldest Christian landmarks in the world, such as the church of the virgin in Asyut and the Coptic Cathedral of St. Mark in Alexandria. Spend the afternoon learning about the Coptic Orthodox Church before returning to the hotel.

MEALS: Breakfast

OVERNIGHT: Barcelo Hotel, Cairo

Breakfast in hotel and check-out. Transfer to Cairo international Airport for your domestic flight to Aswan.

Meet and Greet at Aswan airport – then spend the morning visiting High Dam’s Philae temple. The temple of Isis was one of the last ancient Egyptian temples to remain active, as it continued to function until the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (527–565 AD), who ordered the foreclosure of all pagan temples. It is here that a priest of Isis named Esmet-Akhom carved the very last dated hieroglyphic inscription, which dates to the late 4th century AD (394 AD). The temple was converted into a Christian church and many inscriptions were deliberately destroyed.

Transfer to cruise and check-in – have a delicious lunch on board.

Afternoon pick-up for a cruise on a traditional Felucca to watch the sunset over Aswan. Return to cruise for dinner.

MEALS: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

OVERNIGHT: Princess Sara Nile Cruise

Breakfast on board before visiting the Great Temple of Abu Simbel, in Nubia near Egypt’s southern border, is among the most awe-inspiring monuments of Egypt. It was cut into the living rock by King Ramesses II (the Great) of the Nineteenth Dynasty, around 1264 BC. The temple is most well known for the four imposing seated colossal statues that dominate its façade. One of these collapsed because of an ancient earthquake, and its fragments can still be seen on the ground.

Back to Aswan for lunch on board while we sail for Kom Ombo.

Arrival to Kom Ombo in the afternoon and visit the temple. The building is unique because its ‘double’ design meant that there were courts, halls, sanctuaries and rooms duplicated for two sets of gods. The southern half of the temple was dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek, god of fertility and creator of the world with Hathor and Khonsu. Meanwhile, the northern part of the temple was dedicated to the falcon god Haroeris (“Horus the Elder”), along “with Tasenetnofret (the Good Sister, a special form of Hathor or Tefnet/Tefnut and Panebtawy (Lord of the Two Lands). The temple is atypical because everything is perfectly symmetrical along the main axis.

Return to cruise for a lovely dinner service on board.

MEALS: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

OVERNIGHT: Princess Sara Nile Cruise

Breakfast on board before pick-up to visit one of the best preserved shrines in Egypt. The temple was built in the Ptolemaic Kingdom between 237 and 57 BC. The inscriptions on its walls provide important information on language, myth and religion during the Hellenistic period in Egypt. In particular, the Temple’s inscribed building texts “provide details [both] of its construction, and also preserve information about the mythical interpretation of this and all other temples as the Island of Creation.” There are also “important scenes and inscriptions of the Sacred Drama which related to the age-old conflict between Horus and Seth.

Lunch on board during sailing to Luxor

In the afternoon visit Luxor temple – dedicated to the rejuvenation of kingship; it may have been where many of the pharaohs of Egypt were crowned in reality or conceptually (as in the case of Alexander the Great, who claimed he was crowned at Luxor but may never have traveled south of Memphis, near modern Cairo).

Return to cruise for a beautiful dinner service.

MEALS: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

OVERNIGHT: Princess Sara Nile Cruise

Breakfast on board before disembarking.

Pick-up to visit the Valley of the Kings – the site for this royal burial ground was selected carefully. Its location on specifically the west side of the Nile is significant as well. Because the sun god set (died) in the western horizon in order to be reborn, rejuvenated, in the eastern horizon, the west thus came to have funerary associations. Ancient Egyptian cemeteries were generally situated on the west bank of the Nile for this reason.

Visit the celebrated temple of Hatshepsut (c.1473–1458 BC), the queen who became Pharaoh, in Deir al-Bahari, on the west bank of Luxor. Made up of three man-made terraces that gradually rise up toward the sheer cliff face, this structure is truly a sight to behold. The site of Deir al-Bahari was sacred to Hathor, the goddess who nursed and reared every king, including their mythological ancestor, the god Horus, in Egypt’s primordial past.

Lunch in a local restaurant. Visit the aptly named Ipet-Sut “The Most Select of Places” by the ancient Egyptians, Karnak Temple was the most important temple in Thebes (modern Luxor), in Upper Egypt. This was where the cult of the great god Amun of Thebes was conducted. As such, it was extremely wealthy and its priesthood held great political power.

Transfer to Luxor Airport for your domestic flight to Cairo. From Cairo airport you will be transferred to the hotel.

MEALS: Breakfast

OVERNIGHT: Barcelo Hotel, Cairo

Breakfast in the hotel before checkout. Today we pass through the Ahmed Hamdy tunnel under the suez canal. Visit The springs of Moses found 20 km South of the Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel in South Sinai. This collection of fresh water springs is said to be where Moses was directed by Yahweh to throw a tree branch, possibly a barberry into the bitter springs to make them sweet enough to drink. Onto Sharm El Sheikh for lunch in a local restaurant. Checkin to hotel.

MEALS: Breakfast, Dinner

OVERNIGHT: Shore Aloha Hotel, Sharm El Sheikh

Free day to explore Sharm El Sheikh at your leisure.

Optional Day Trip: Boating, Diving, Snorkelling – Contact MyHoliday2 for more details and availability.

MEALS: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

OVERNIGHT: Shore Aloha Hotel, Sharm El Sheikh

Breakfast at the hotel, transfer to St Catherine. Within a gorge of an extraordinary mountain range lays an extraordinary relic of the 5th century. A site of great religious significance, St Catherine’s monastery is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world. The monastery is part of the wider Eastern Orthodox Church and has been dubbed a UNESCO World Heritage Site, or a place of substantial historical and cultural value, thus falling under the protection of international law. Located in South Sinai, Egypt, the monastery has become part of St Catherine City, a city thatwas literally built around the monastery, creating an amalgam between the old and the new. A collection of some of the earliest works of art in existence, the world’s oldest operational library, and the well where Moses first met his wife are a mere fragment of the astoundingly rich antiquities Saint Catherine’s has to offer. To crown the experience, you can witness, and even participate, in the mass held by some of the most devout monks in the country, surrounded by millennia-old artifacts in the Church of Transfiguration. Try to get a tour guide so you can take in as much as possible.

Transfer to The Blue Hole, a diving location on the southeast Sinai, a few kilometres north of Dahab, Egypt on the coast of the Red Sea. The Blue Hole is a submarine sinkhole, with a maximum depth within the hole of just over 100 m (328 feet). There is a shallow opening to the sea around 6 m (20 feet) deep, known as “the saddle”, and a 26 m (85 feet) long tunnel, known as “the Arch”, whose ceiling is at a depth of 55 m (181 feet), and whose bottom falls away as it reaches the seaward side to about 120 m (394 feet). On the seaward side the floor drops steeply to over 1,000 metres (3,300 ft). The hole and the surrounding area have an abundance of coral and reef fish. The Blue Hole is popular for freediving because of the depth directly accessible from shore and the lack of current. Lunch at Dahab. Back to Sharm El Sheikh

MEALS: Breakfast, Dinner

OVERNIGHT: Shore Aloha Hotel, Sharm El Sheikh

Breakfast at the hotel before spending the day at your leisure.

Optional Day Trip: Boating, Diving, Snorkelling – Contact MyHoliday2 for more details and availability.

MEALS: Breakfast, Dinner

OVERNIGHT: Shore Aloha Hotel, Sharm El Sheikh

Breakfast and check-out, before your transfer to the Nuweiba Port. Travel via Ferry (included) to Aqaba Port. There you will be greeted by a MyHoliday2 Representative for the 1 hour transfer to Wadi Rum. Our operators will have your visa organised.

MEALS: Breakfast, Dinner

OVERNIGHT: SunCity Camp, Wadi Rum

After breakfast enjoy a 2 hour wilderness adventure by jeep of Wadi Rum, following in the footsteps of Lawrence of Arabia, climbing sand dunes.

Onto Petra for a chance to marvel at the beauty of the Lost City, the Red Rose City of Petra, exploring its many caves and tombs. Walk through the canyon and be astounded at the magnificent Treasury, the entrance guarding the ancient Nabatians city, now one of the Modern 7 Wonders of the World. In the afternoon transfer to the hotel for a delicious dinner.

MEALS: Breakfast, Dinner

OVERNIGHT: Dead Sea Spa Hotel

After breakfast in the hotel – Enjoy the sunshine at the lowest point on earth, whilst trying out the invigorating mud bath to cleanse the skin. Watch the sunset over the hills of the West Bank with Jerusalem in the distance.

MEALS: Breakfast, Dinner

OVERNIGHT: Dead Sea Spa Hotel

Check out after breakfast and drive to the town of Madaba. Here you will discover the amazing Byzantine mosaics excavated throughout the town. See the Madaba Map, the oldest preserved mosaic map of the Holy Lands. Continue to Mount Nebo and wonder at the view where Moses looked across to the promised Land and later died and was buried, then transfer to Amman city for a tour to visit the Citadel & Roman Theatre, then head Downtown for some shopping.

MEALS: Breakfast, Dinner

OVERNIGHT: Harir Palace Hotel, Amman

Breakfast at the hotel prior to check out and airport transfer to Amman Airport. We thank you for choosing to travel with MyHoliday2 and look forward to seeing you again soon! Have a safe journey home.

MEALS: Breakfast