Kom Ombo, Edfu and Esna Temples Day Trip from Aswan

You are collected from your hotel in Aswan and settle into your private vehicle for the journey north along the Nile Valley. The road takes you through sugar cane fields and villages, and your guide gives you an overview of the three temples you will see and the Ptolemaic dynasty that built them. Your driver handles the police permits for the road. Your first stop is Kom Ombo, the closest of the three temples to Aswan, and you arrive rested and ready to explore.

You visit Kom Ombo, a Greco-Roman temple standing on a bend of the Nile and unusual because it is a double temple, with two sanctuaries for two gods, Horus and Sobek the crocodile god. On its walls your guide shows you a relief of surgical instruments and medical scenes, and you see the nilometer used to measure the river's flood. The nearby crocodile museum displays mummified crocodiles. Your guide also tells you that part of the temple was cut away by Muhammad Ali to build a sugar factory.

You continue to Edfu and the Temple of Horus, one of the best preserved temples in Egypt. Your guide takes you through the first pylon and the great court to the inner halls, and explains the mamisi, or birth house, the festival scenes and the foundation scene carved on the walls. You also see the reliefs showing the battle between Horus and Seth, the mythical story that gave the temple its meaning and that lies at the heart of Egyptian kingship.

Your last stop is Esna, where you visit the Temple of Khnum, the ram-headed god who was believed to shape humans on a potter's wheel and to control the Nile flood and fertility. Your guide explains the temple's place among the Ptolemaic and Roman monuments of the valley. You also see the hall's columns and ceiling, decorated with hymns and astronomical scenes. After your visit you drive back to Aswan and are dropped at your hotel, where the tour ends.