Esna Egypt
272
Cruises availables
At departure or passage at this port
Uniworld Boutique River Cruise (272 Cruises)
River Tosca
137 Cruises
| 6 May | 12 days | Round-trip from Cairo, Egypt |
450-628-6241
Call us
|
| 13 May | 12 days | Round-trip from Cairo, Egypt |
450-628-6241
Call us
|
| 20 May | 12 days | Round-trip from Cairo, Egypt |
450-628-6241
Call us
|
S.S. Sphinx
135 Cruises
| 6 May | 12 days | Round-trip from Cairo, Egypt |
450-628-6241
Call us
|
| 13 May | 12 days | Round-trip from Cairo, Egypt |
450-628-6241
Call us
|
| 20 May | 12 days | Round-trip from Cairo, Egypt |
450-628-6241
Call us
|
Frequently Asked Questions
On the west bank of the Nile, about fifty kilometres south of Luxor. Esna is also the site of a lock: ships sometimes queue there before passing the barrage, and many travellers use the wait to go ashore.
Yes. The temple of Khnum is about two hundred metres from the river, reached through the shopping lanes. It is a short approach that sets the tone: here the monument lives in the middle of everyday life.
Because the town rose around it. Centuries of debris and building raised the ground, leaving the temple at the bottom of a nine-metre pit. You look down on it from the street before taking the stairs to the forecourt.
A single hall, but what a hall. Only the hypostyle hall, cleared in the nineteenth century, is open: twenty-four columns with plant capitals, no two alike, under an astronomical ceiling with no equally well-preserved equivalent in the valley. The rest of the building still sleeps under the town.
Everything. An Egyptian-German campaign through the 2020s cleaned the ceiling centimetre by centimetre, revealing zodiacs, constellations and processions of deities in vivid ochres, blues and golds. Today's visitors are among the first since antiquity to see them close to their original colours.
The ram-headed god who, by tradition, shaped humans on his potter's wheel from the river's silt. The columns carry the calendar of local festivals and hymns in his honour — a goldmine for Egyptologists.
One hour to an hour and a half ashore. The site is compact and close to the quay: it is one of the shortest calls on the Nile, and one of the densest.
The descent to the forecourt is by stairs, nine metres down. Nothing acrobatic, but you must be able to go down and back up a staircase: it is the only way into the hall.
Yes, the el-Qisariyya souk, a few steps away. This covered market street carries on a commercial vocation said to date back to Roman times: fabrics, spices, household goods, embroidered dresses, and traders less insistent than elsewhere. A quarter of an hour is enough.
Morning. The light reaches into the hypostyle hall and lifts the colours of the ceiling, which is the whole reason for the call. Bring small change for the souk and for tips.
