As anyone who has read Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile knows, the best way to travel up the Nile is by boat — so of course that’s what we did.  We used Luxor as our starting point and then working our way south toward Aswan aboard a river cruiser that may not have been as glamorous as the 19th Century steamers but was still fairly luxurious with spacious cabins, a rooftop deck and pool, and all the air-conditioning you could want.

Somewhat surprisingly to me, the cruise up the Nile became one of my favorite parts of the trip.  I had expected it to be more of a way to get from A to B, with perhaps some tedium of being trapped on board.  But instead I sat for hours on the sun deck (sometimes in the sun, sometimes in the shade) watching the landscape roll by, with its lush green banks and barren desert hills behind.  It was fascinating to see just how narrow the stretch of green was through the desert, sometimes only a few hundred feet wide.  We passed by dusty villages, kids playing at water’s edge and waving to us, and fishermen in their boats.  I loved it.