You can make it to Aswan or Luxor on the train from Cairo, but why would you want to do that when the nicer option is to fly to one of the two places and catch a boat that goes upstream or downstream and leisurely visit the awe inspiring temples that belong to this region.

I cruised down the Nile from Aswan to Luxor on the Oberoi Philae and enjoyed each moment of it. The pace was leisurely, though the strong sun does tire you out a bit.

Aswan is Egypt's most Southern city and has always been this country's main gate to the rest of Africa therefore the atmosphere is distinctively African. It's a small enough town to walk around and graced with the most beautiful setting on the Nile, where it flows through amber desert and granite rocks, round emerald islands covered in palm groves and tropical plants.

In Aswan the pace of life is slow and relaxing. You can sit on the bank watching the sailboats etch the sky with their tall masts or spend time in floating restaurants listening to Nubian music and eating freshly caught fish.

The city proper lies on the east bank of the Nile. Relax here, visit a few mosques, but then prepare for an adventure. The bazaar runs along the Corniche, which continues past the Ferial Gardens and the Nubian Museum, and continues on to the Cemetery, with its forest of cupolas surmounted tombs from the Fatimid period. Just east of the cemetery in the famous area is the gigantic Unfinished Obelisk. Just to the south of this, two Graeco-Roman sarcophagi and an unfinished colossus remains half buried in the sand.

Upriver is the tomb of Sultan Mohammed Shah Aga Khan who died in 1957. Known as the Tomb of the Aga Khan, it is beautiful in its simplicity. A road from there leads back to the Coptic Monastery of St Simeon, which was built in the sixth century in honour of Amba Hadra, a local saint.

By far the mainstay of Aswan is The Philae. Dedicated to Goddess Isis and constructed on the beautiful island of Philae it is believed to have taken 800 years to build this complex. In addition to the priests who lived and practiced daily rituals on the island, it was also home to various stone masons, carpenters and other craftsmen who continuously built and extended structures.

However the building of the Aswan Dam in 1906 almost wiped out the Island and its history. Fortunately an amazing rescue mission which could start only after the completion of the dam in the 1971, saved the Philae. The Egyptian government, along with the support of many countries of the world and the UNESCO undertook a mammoth task where the flooded Philae was pumped dry through the use of a coffer dam. The Philae temple itself was then carefully dismantled, so that it could be relocated to a safe spot. Interestingly each block of the temple was labelled and numbered and its position carefully recorded, so that it could be reconstructed in exactly the same format. Even the site on which the main Philae temple rests, was landscaped so that it would look like the site on which the temple was originally standing. The rescue mission took 10 years to complete and involved the movement of blocks weighing 27000 tonnes in all.

Philae Island is famous for the legend of Isis and Osiris. For example the pylons within the temple of Isis contains depictions of the deities involved in this famous ancient Egyptian myth. Goddess Isis is the wife of Osiris and mother of God Horus. In the myth Osiris was murdered by his brother, the wicked God Seth. Seth scattered Osiris pieces in various places. Isis tirelessly searched for Osiris's body parts and then using her Goddess powers to join the pieces together brought Osiris back to life. Following Osiris' resurrection Isis and Osiris conceived Horus. Osiris then adopted the role of "God of the under world and judge of the dead”. At the end of the tale Horus grew up to avenge his father by defeating Seth in combat.

Philae became the legendary burial place of Osiris.

Among the other major attractions of Aswan are of course the Aswan Dams. There are two. The first was finished in 1902, and was the largest in the world in its days. The new one was completed in 1971, and came as a result of the higher needs of the increasing Egyptian population. But it's far from containing its maximum amount of water, due to low water in the Nile up from Aswan.

The Temple of Edfu was the next halt on the Nile. An ancient Egyptian temple located on the west bank it is the second largest temple in Egypt after Karnak in Luxor, and one of the best preserved. The temple is dedicated to the falcon god Horus. The inscriptions on its walls provide important information on language, myth and religion during the Graeco-Roman period in ancient Egypt.

Edfu was one of several temples built during the Ptolemic period, including Dendera, Esna, Kom Ombo and Philae. Its size reflects the relative prosperity of the time.

The temple of Edfu fell into disuse as a religious monument following Theodosius I's edict banning non-Christian worship within the Roman Empire in 391 CE. As elsewhere, many of the temple's carved reliefs were razed by followers of the Christian faith which came to dominate Egypt. The blackened ceiling of the hypostyle hall, visible today, is believed to be the result of arson intended to destroy religious imagery that is now considered pagan.

Over the centuries the temple became buried to a depth of 39 ft beneath drifting desert sand and layers of river silt deposited by the Nile. Local inhabitants built homes directly over the former temple grounds. Only the upper reaches of the temple pylons were visible by 1798, when the temple was identified by a French expedition. In 1860 Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, began the work of freeing Edfu temple from the sands.

Today Edfu is nearly intact; its centuries-long slumber beneath the desert sand has left it remarkably well-preserved. Today almost every riverboat that cruises the Nile stops here. I personally liked it very much, but a little less than the Karnak Temple which I was to see the next day.

Luxor is on the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes and the ruins of its temple complexes have frequently been characterised as the "world's greatest open air museum”. Immediately opposite, across the Nile River, lie the monuments, temples and tombs on the West Bank Necropolis, which include the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. Thousands of international tourists arrive each year to visit these monuments, their presence represents a large part of the economic basis for the modern city. As a result, Luxor represents an excellent base for touring Upper Egypt, and is a popular holiday destination, both in its own right and as a starting or finishing point for Nile cruises.

Access to the temple was - and still is, for the thousands of tourists who flock there every day - from the north, where a causeway lined by sphinxes once led all the way to Ipet Sut in modern Al-Karnak.

The temple properly begins with the 79 ft high First Pylon, built by Ramesses II. The pylon was decorated with scenes of Ramesses's military triumphs. This main entrance to the temple complex was originally flanked by six colossal statues of Ramesses - four seated, and two standing - but only two (both seated) have survived. One can also see a 82 ft tall pink granite obelisk, it is one of a matching pair. The other was taken to Paris in 1835 where it now stands in the centre of the Place de la Concorde.

The Karnak Temple complex, universally known only as Karnak, describes a vast conglomeration of ruined temples, chapels, pylons and other buildings. It has taken its name from the nearby and partly surrounding modern village of el-Karnak, some 2.5 km north of Luxor. The complex is the largest ancient religious site in the world and is probably the second most visited historical site in Egypt, second only to the Giza Pyramids near Cairo. It consists of four main precincts of which only one is accessible for tourists and the general public. This is the Precinct of Amun-Re, and this it is also the main part of the complex and by far the largest part. The three other parts, the Precinct of Montu, the Precinct of Mut and the Temple of Amenhotep IV (dismantled), are closed to the public.

The key difference between Karnak and most of the other temples and sites in Egypt is the length of time over which it was developed and used. Construction work began in the 16th century BC. Approximately thirty pharaohs contributed to the buildings, enabling it to reach a size, complexity, and diversity not seen elsewhere. Few of the individual features of Karnak are unique, but the size and number of features are overwhelming. Construction of temples started in the Middle Kingdom and continued through to Ptolemaic times.

The Valley of the Queens is a place where wives of pharaohs were buried in ancient times. It was known as Ta-Set-Neferu, meaning -'the place of the Children of the Pharaoh', because along with the Queens of the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties (1550-1070 BCE) many princes and princesses were also buried with various members of the nobility. The tombs of these individuals were maintained by mortuary priests who performed daily rituals and provided offerings and prayers for the deceased nobility.

The valley is located near the better known Valley of the Kings, on the west bank of the Nile across from Luxor. This barren area in the western hills was chosen due to its relative isolation and proximity to the capital. The kings of the 18th dynasty, instead of the traditional building of pyramids as burial chambers (perhaps because of their vulnerability to tomb robbers), now chose to be buried in rock-cut tombs.

This necropolis is said to hold more than seventy tombs, many of which are stylish and lavishly decorated, an example of this is the resting place carved out of the rock for Queen Nefertari.

Ramesses II was a pharaoh of the 19th dynasty of Egypt. He ruled for 66 years and 2 months during the 13th century BC, the apogee of Ancient Egypt's power and glory. This extraordinarily long reign, the wealth available in the state coffers, and, undeniably, the pharaoh's personal vanity meant that Ramesses, of all the ancient rulers, left what is perhaps the most indelible mark on the country. His legacy can be seen most clearly in the archaeological record - in the many buildings that Ramesses modified, usurped, or constructed from the ground up.