Jordan, Egypt & Israel - Cruise & Stay

Today we venture to Kerak, the stunning and strategically located Crusader castle; one of the largest fortresses in the Levant, it is certainly the most famous. We head to Petra, stopping en route near the modern town of Shobak to visit the Montreal Castle which preceded Kerak and has interesting architectural features. We end the day at Petra.

Today 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. After lunch, we travel to Aqaba ready to embark the M/S Harmony, which will take us overnight to Sharm El Sheik.

This morning we arrive in Sharm El Sheik. From here we venture to St Catherine’s Monastery. A UNESCO site, it was built in the 6th century by the Emperor Justinian in honour of Catherine of Alexandria, patron saint of scholars. Heavily fortified and a place of pilgrimage, the monastery and houses a significant library, as well as an invaluable collection of icons. We return to the ship in the afternoon.

The next two days are spent in Luxor which includes an overnight hotel stay. We start our first day with a visit 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. We continue to our hotel where we lunch and spend the afternoon at leisure.

After breakfast we will travel to the East Bank where you will visit the staggering Temple of Karnak, probably the ancient world’s largest remaining religious site, with structures that date back 4,000 years. We focus on the story and spectacle of the immense sanctuary of the sun-deity Amun-Re. 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, the temple, along with its many statues and relief carvings has been left with its structure preserved and intact. After lunch at our hotel, we make our way back to the ship where we sail overnight to Suez.

Today, we spend the day at sea where we will relax and enjoy lectures from the onboard Egyptologist. We arrive in Suez this afternoon and overnight in the port.

From Suez, 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 Egyptian Antiquities Museum home of the world’s most extensive collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts, many of which have never been on display before. After lunch we return to our ship.

Today we relax on the Harmony while crossing the most famous canal in the world, the Suez Canal, constructed in the end of the 19th century to provide access from the Red to the Mediterranean Sea. While admiring the views from the ship, we will have lecturers from the onboard Egyptologist. We arrive in Port Said in the late afternoon and overnight at sea towards Tel Aviv.

We disembark in the morning and head to Jerusalem, where we visit the Western Wall and explore the City of David including the Pool of Siloam, a rock cut pool fed by the Gihon Spring in use at the time of Jesus and the excavation at the Givati Parking lot. After lunch, we venture to Bethlehem where we visit the UNESCO site of the Church of the Nativity, originally commissioned by the emperor Constantine, rebuilt by Justinian and repaired in the Crusader period. We end the day with a visit to Solomon’s Pools, three Hellenistic reservoirs which fed water to Jerusalem.

We spend all day in Jerusalem, exploring the most important religious centre in the world. We start with the Tower of David Museum, which recounts the history of Jerusalem and is housed in the ancient citadel. We proceed to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Paleo-Christian Church deemed to the be locus of Christ’s crucifixion. The tour takes in the Cardo Maximus, an important witness to the Roman city, as well as the Damascus Gate built by Suleiman the Magnificent in the place of a still visible Hadrianic arch. After lunch, we visit the Ecce Homo Church an ancient church which has remnants from the Roman city. We pass by the Ecce Homo Gate, a Hadrianic gate which led to the Roman forum, on our ways to St Anne’s Church, which is at the start of the Via Dolorosa. A short walk away, we see Gethsemane, a site of incomparable history. The day ends with a visit to the nearby church of Dominus Flevit, which has a Byzantine mosaic floor.

Today we transfer to Ben Gurion Airport and return to London.