Nigel McGilchrist, a renowned and popular art critic, historian, and author, will lead this amazing excursion to Egypt. Nigel has led hundreds of Sewanee students as director of the European Studies program and is most popular as the leader of our highly successful travel programs for alumni and friends. Expected to fill quickly, this trip is limited to 22 travelers.
This is an itinerary for an unusual and immensely varied, ten-day visit to Egypt, which I have entitled ‘Explorers’ Egypt’ because at some points it goes to places in the country where the ordinary tourist and visitor simply does not go. It is designed to give a taste of the best of all of Egypt’s many, fascinating sides: the great Pharaonic monuments and temples of Ancient Egypt, of course – but also its no-less important Biblical and Christian sites, Islamic monuments, and even its modern miracles, such as the Aswan Dam and the New Library of Alexandria. Mixed in with this are desert experiences and excursions by 4WD Jeep out across the sands to the great Roman, stone-quarrying sites in the Eastern Desert, littered with abandoned columns and half-made architectural pieces scattered over a landscape whose majesty and silence is breath-taking, and whose only moving life is the occasional soaring eagle.
Building on the experience of previous tours to Egypt, I have designed this in a way that may seem at first to be counter-intuitive – beginning at the furthest point, at Aswan towards the southern border of Egypt, and leaving Cairo and its Pyramids until the very end. All with good reason. Aswan is the most relaxed and beautiful part of Egypt, and to begin in the enchantment and peace of a luxury hotel on an island in the middle of the Nile, after a long journey from the States, seems to me fundamental for enjoying the Egyptian experience. Then, as you gain knowledge and understanding of this extraordinary country and its history, you will be ready to finish with its richest but most demanding element – Cairo, with all its Pharaonic grandeur, its mosques, its churches and its pululating chaos. Cairo must have almost the longest continual history of anywhere in the world; it is also Africa’s most populous city today.
Those of you who traveled with me before will know that nothing motivates me more than trying to avoid the lava-flows of tourist crowds. Not an easy thing to do in Egypt, because the habitable area of the country and its sites is so compact; but as much as is humanly possible – by a combination of a few really early starts, careful choice of sites and times, and some bumping over desert-tracks – I have tried to do this and to protect the group from the worst excesses of mass-tourism. For this reason also I have elected for the finest and most comfortable hotels and accommodations. Egypt has some remarkable hotels, and I have chosen the best – nearly all 5-star luxury hotels – because Egypt can be hot and dazzling and tiring, and the traveler who is going to get the most out of it needs to have good comfort, good food, a good breakfast, a good shower and good air-conditioning. Only at St. Catherine’s Monastery at the ‘Burning Bush’ in Sinai, do we go for rigorous monastic simplicity – which I think is only appropriate in such a remote and sacred place.
The tour is ten-days long. It is compact and selective: it includes about as much and as wide a variety as it is possible to see in ten days. I didn’t want to make it any longer for reasons of expense. But for those who do have the time and the inclination, I have added a four-day optional extension to visit Egypt’s last and most extraordinary frontier – the fertile Oasis of Siwa, deep in the unforgettable landscapes of the Sahara Desert, not far from the border with Libya. Siwa was the site of an important Oracle in Antiquity, to which Alexander the Great came: its pronouncements changed his life. This is an extension for the real explorer with curiosity – it is as much about nature as about history: the extraordinary mountains of the Sahara, its fossils of fish and whales, its luxuriant pools and groves in the midst of desert waste, its light, and the utter stillness of its nights, presided over by the brightest stars you can imagine. The last night and day of the extension is spent in luxury again, this time in Alexandria – Egypt’s most outward-looking and cosmopolitan city, and its window on the Mediterranean.
This trip will be limited to 22 travelers. The cost per traveler will be $4,240 exclusive of air fare and other incidentals (double occupancy - singles will be charged an additional $540).
For a complete itinerary, click here . To save your space on the trip, click here.
