Israel, Egypt & Jordan - Cruise & Stay

We spend all day in Jerusalem, exploring the most important religious centre in the world. We start with the Mount of Olives, which offers stunning views of the city, continue to the church of Dominus Flevit and walk a short distance away to Gethsemane, a site of incomparable history. We continue to the Via Dolorosa and stop at St. Anne’s Church and the Ecce Homo Church before ending the morning at the Paleo-Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The day ends with a visit to Bethlehem and, in particular, the Church of the Nativity known throughout the world.

Today we travel to Tel Aviv Port to board our ship, MY Harmony V and then set sail towards the Egypt. On-board we will have lecture about Egypt from our Egyptologist.

We arrive at Port Said in the morning and we make our way to Giza to visit the only surviving Ancient Wonder of the World, the awesome Great Pyramid of Khufu, along with the neighbouring Pyramids to Khafre and Menkaure. We also stop at the Great Sphinx of Giza carved out of the bedrock standing on the Giza plateau. We continue to the outstanding new Grand Egyptian Museum home of the world’s most extensive collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts, many of which have never been on display before.

Today we relax on the MY Harmony V while crossing the most famous canal in the world, the Suez Canal, constructed in the end of the 19^th century to provide access from the Red to the Mediterranean Sea. While admiring the views from the ship, we will have lectures from the on-board Egyptologist. We overnight at sea.

Today we enjoy a BBQ lunch on deck and in the afternoon have a swim stop at either the Gubal islands or El Gouna where we can enjoy the limpid water off the coast of Egypt and its colourful marine environment.

The next two days are spent in Luxor which includes an overnight hotel stay. We start our first day with a visit to the staggering temple site of Karnak, probably the ancient world’s largest remaining religious site, with structures that date back 4,000 years. Reached via the famous Avenue of Sphinxes, lined with carved human-headed beasts, this is a dazzling maze of gateways, obelisks, pillared halls, and subsidiary shrines. We continue to the Luxor Temple Complex, constructed over 3,000 years ago and largely served and intact, before proceeding to our hotel.

After breakfast, we make our ways to the Valley of the Kings. The necropolis was reserved for royal burials from around 2100 BCE, but it was the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom who chose this once-remote desert valley site for their grand rock-cut tombs. We proceed to Hatshepsut’s Temple, built for the famous female pharaoh, and to the Colossi of Memnon, two gigantic sandstone statues of Amenhotep III dating from the 14th century BCE. After the visits, we return to our ship, MY Harmony V.

We arrive in Aqaba in the afternoon and then embark on an excursion to Wadi Rum, a UNESCO Site known for the graffiti left on its rocks as much as for its incredible landscape made famous by the 1960s film Lawrence of Arabia. We return to Aqaba for our last night on board the MY Harmony V.

After disembarking, we spend the morning in the incomparable Nabatean site of Petra. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and for its ingenious water channelling system, Petra became wealthy through its strategic trading position. Its photogenic ruins are more spectacular in person because of the sheer scale of the ruins. We spend the night in Petra.

Today we venture to the modern town of Shobak to visit the Montreal Castle which preceded Kerak and has interesting architectural features. En-route to Amman, we stop at Kerak, the stunning and strategically located Crusader castle; one of the largest fortresses in the Levant, it is certainly the most famous.

Today we transfer to Amman airport and return to London.