I am hoping to visit Egypt later year and I am planning on going to Cairo, Giza, Memphis, Luxor to Aswan on a Nile cruise and Abu Simbel.

Is visiting Lake Nasser and Alexandria a must? I can extend my trip (time wise) if need be. Any advice fodorites can give will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.e

Swilliams

I strongly suspect that if you visit Aswan and Abu Simbel you will see Lake Nasser as well. The Aswan High Dam (located at the south end of Aswan) dammed the Nile and the resulting reservoir is called Lake Nasser. It is similar to other flood control/hydroelectric generating dams located all over the world - but Egyptians are rightly proud of it. Lake Nasser is made up of water - which looks pretty much the same all over the world.

If you travel to Abu Simbel (and I do encourage you to do so), the water body directly in front of Abu Simbel is Lake Nasser. Abu Simbel would have been underwater now, if it wasn't cut to pieces and moved to a place above the new shoreline of Lake Nasser and reassembled.

We visited Alexandria in 2005, but chose not to return in March 2009. It is about a 3 hour coach ride one way from Cairo. There are a number of wonderful sites to see in Alexandria (catacombs, biblioteca, Roman theatre, Mediterranean Sea et al), but we chose to have that day somewhere else. Perhaps someone else can give you better reasons to go to Alex. It is not like it is a bad destination, but if you only have a certain amount of time, you want to make the best use of it.

I hope you have a wonderful visit. You will find that you quickly have 75 million new friends.

tC

Lake Nasser is just a body of water like any other. You can't even see anything at the High Dam, other than the dam itself. It's not like Hoover Dam where you can tour the "guts".

If time is not an issue, I would visit Alexandria. I was there in January and thought it was worth the long ride from Cairo.

There are a few boats that cruises on Lake Nassar to tombs often not seen. There have been some comments on this forum which a "search" might bring up. It's a completely different experience than the traditional Nile Cruise.

If it's just a matter of seeing the Lake, then you can do it from right in front of Abu Simbel.

Can't comment on Alex.

Thank you all for the feedback.

I should clarify, I was referring to a cruise on Lake Nasser. The cruise visits, Kasr Ibrim, Amada, Wadi el-Seboua and the Valley of the lions.

Any comments from fodorites who have been to these sights will be appreciated, I will also do a search to see if anything comes up.

Thanks.

I did a Lake Nasser cruise several years ago and went to several of the sites (stayed on the boat for a few others). I thought it was a nice cruise, but not as interesting as the tradiational Nile cruise.

Unless you have some burning desire to see these sites, it's something I would put on the "to do" list for a 2nd or 3rd trip to Egypt, not the first.

Why do people let tour companies drive you to Alexandria? How B-O-R-I-N-G! 3 hours in the desert is a boring drive and 6 hours is twice as bad.
Take the train to Alexandria and the train back. Less time is required on the train and the scenery is a million times more interesting. You go up the Delta and at least there are farms and farmers to look at as well as villages.

Alexandria is spectacular. In the city off the beach it is much like Cairo but it has some really great Roman sites to see. The beach area though is a breath of fresh air - literally. It's very nice, and the fish food lunches are a nice change to the kofta and kabab you'll be OD'd on by the time you get to Alex.