Edfu and Kom Ombo

The Two Ptolemaic Temples Every Nile Cruise Stops At: Edfu, Dedicated To Horus And The Most Completely Preserved Temple In Egypt With Its Roof And Pylon Intact, And Kom Ombo, Shared Between Sobek And Horus The Elder And Standing Right On The Water With A Crocodile Museum Beside It · Edfu, Aswan

These are the two Ptolemaic temples every Nile cruise stops at between Luxor and Aswan, and they are worth stopping at whether or not you are on a boat. Edfu, dedicated to the falcon god Horus, is the most completely preserved temple in Egypt: the pylon stands at full height, the roof is still on, the hypostyle halls are dark the way they were meant to be, and the walls carry the fullest surviving account of temple ritual anywhere, including the annual re-enactment of Horus defeating Seth. It survived because sand buried it to the capitals until the 1860s. Sixty kilometres upstream, Kom Ombo sits right on the riverbank with its columns reflected in the water, and it is a double temple, mirrored down the middle, dedicated to Sobek the crocodile on one side and Horus the Elder on the other - with a small museum beside it holding mummified crocodiles dug out of the sand nearby. Both are hot, both are busy when the boats are in, and both empty out entirely an hour later.

Temple of Horus in the middle of Edfu town, with the double temple of Kom Ombo on the riverbank 60 km upstream, Edfu, Aswan, Egypt

Both open daily from early morning to late afternoon, shorter in winter, with separate tickets. Their rhythm is set by the cruise fleet rather than the clock: when four boats moor at once the temples are crowded for ninety minutes and then completely empty, so arriving deliberately out of step is the whole trick. Edfu is about a kilometre from the river and the traditional transfer is by horse-drawn caleche, an arrangement worth thinking about before you accept it. Kom Ombo is a two-minute walk from its own mooring. Both are floodlit in the evening and Kom Ombo in particular is striking after dark. The crocodile museum at Kom Ombo keeps the same hours as the temple and is usually included. Trains and road transport serve Edfu town from Luxor and Aswan.

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