Abu Simbel, a historic site that we had wanted to visit ever since we had seen it in several remakes of the Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. Well, it was time to do so now in our travel around Egypt!

We were to visit Abu Simbel in the first half of the morning of our second day on the Nile cruise. We started early; around 5:30am from Aswan. Our tour partner picked us up from our cruise boat. We then headed off. The journey took us around 2.5 hours by road. The road trip itself was uneventful, the highlight was seeing the sun rising from our van.

Once at the parking of the site, we were assigned a local guide for the site and instructions on when we needed to be back at the parking. Finally we were all set to explore 😀.

A short walk from the parking lot and we saw the first structures that gave us the hints that we were close to the seeing the temples.

Walking past it and we lay our eyes on what we had come to see, the Great Temple dedicated to the pharaoh Ramesses II and to the gods Amun, Ra-Horakhty and Ptah.

We of course has to take some pictures of us with the temple in the background.

We then headed into the Great Temple to explore it. Here are photos of some things we saw:

It was now time to explore the Small Temple that is dedicated to this chief wife, Queen Nefertari and the goddess Hathor. First some photos of what it was from the outside.

And as before, adding our glamour to it 😉.

And now to peek inside.

By the time we stepped back out, the crowds had arrived. Bus loads of tourists that we had left behind when driving the site in the morning had arrived. Lines had started forming outside to get into the temples.

Just like the Philae temple, this entire complex too had been relocated in its entirety in 1968 to higher grounds. This was to avoid it being submerged when the Aswan Dam was being constructed. It must have been a project at a grand scale!

The ride back to the cruise was uneventful. We were just in time to catch lunch. Once all the guests were on board, the ship set sail up the Nile towards the town of Kom Ombo.

Summary

Had it lived to our expectations? It certainly had! The structures are grand even in its current form. One can only imagine what it must have in its original grandeur. It had taken around 24 years to build!

Like before here are some recommendations:

  • Try and get there as early as possible. I don’t know if you will have much control on this, especially if you are tying up with a local tour operator. We were ferried in a van. That meant it was faster and hence allowed us to get there quicker than the buses ferrying other tourists. This helped us experience the place with a lot less people.
  • Take a hat and water. It can get pretty hot very quickly. We had gone in December, the onset of the winter period. Even then, it got hot in around 1 hour.
  • Toilets are there in the complex. But it is paid. So carry some change in cash, just in case you need to use it.