Best time
October–April
Home / Destinations / Abu Simbel
Destination guide · The deep southTwo temples cut into a cliff near the Sudanese border — and one of the boldest rescues in history, when they were lifted whole from the rising water.
Abu Simbel is not a town but a place — a tiny settlement near the Sudanese border, some three hundred kilometres south of Aswan, built around two temples that Ramesses II cut into a sandstone cliff thirty-three centuries ago. The four seated colossi at the Great Temple, each as tall as a six-storey building, are among the most astonishing things the ancient world left standing.
It is also the site of one of the modern world's boldest rescues. When the High Dam raised Lake Nasser in the 1960s, the temples would have drowned beneath it — so the world cut them apart and rebuilt them, block by block, on the cliff above. To stand here is to see two feats at once: the pharaoh's, and the engineers' who saved his work.
A great one for the king, and a smaller one for his queen — carved side by side into the same cliff, facing the rising sun.
The famous one. Four enthroned colossi of the king, each twenty metres tall, guard a facade cut straight from the cliff; within, a hall of Osiride pillars, the walls carved with his victory at Kadesh, and a sanctuary where the gods sit in the dark at the temple's heart.
The temple next door, raised to the goddess Hathor and to Ramesses' queen, Nefertari. Six standing colossi line its front — and, rare in all of Egypt, the queen is carved the same height as the king, a public measure of how he honoured her.
Between 1964 and 1968, in one of the largest archaeological rescues ever attempted, both temples were sawn into more than a thousand blocks, lifted clear of the rising lake, and rebuilt on an artificial hill sixty-five metres higher and two hundred metres back — reoriented exactly, down to the angle of the dawn light.
A vast concrete dome, hidden inside the hill, carries the weight of the rebuilt mountain. Few visitors realise the cliff behind the temples is hollow, or that the whole sublime scene was assembled, stone by numbered stone, within living memory.
The Great Temple was aligned so that, on two mornings each year, the rising sun travels the full sixty metres of its axis and lights the gods in the innermost room — all but Ptah, lord of darkness, who keeps to the shadow. It still happens after the move, a day later than in Ramesses' time, a small price for being saved.
The "Sun Festival" draws great crowds on those mornings. We can put you there for it, or steer you clear, as you prefer.
Around 22 February & 22 October
Abu Simbel is remote, and how you reach it shapes the whole visit. There is the quick way, the long way, and the right way.
Around three and a half hours each way across the desert, usually done as a single day — a pre-dawn departure, the temples by mid-morning, and back to Aswan by afternoon.
A short flight from Aswan — under an hour — often timed so the aircraft waits while you visit and brings you back the same morning. Easily the fastest option.
Sleep at the lake and have the temples at their best — late afternoon and again at opening, almost to yourself, with the evening sound-and-light show between. The deep south rewards those who linger.
October to April. This is the hottest corner of Egypt, and summer here is genuinely punishing — the visit belongs to the cool months, and to the early morning or late afternoon even then.
The two Sun-Festival mornings, around 22 February and 22 October, are spectacular and heaving with people in equal measure. Whether you come for them or avoid them, plan around them on purpose — never by accident.
The temples themselves take a couple of unhurried hours. The real choice is the journey: a long day from Aswan, or a night at the lake.
If Abu Simbel is high on your list — and for many travellers it is the single image they carry of Egypt — the overnight is worth every bit of the detour. The temples without the day-trip wave are a different experience entirely.
There is little here but the temples — which is exactly the reason to stay.
Low bungalows in gardens on the shore of Lake Nasser, a short walk from the temples — the established place to spend the night, and the means to see Abu Simbel at dusk and dawn without a coach in sight. The village is tiny; you come for the monuments and the lake, not for anything else, and that is the whole point.
Two hours covers both temples without rushing. The Great Temple deserves most of it; leave a little for the Small Temple and the lake view behind them.
The day-trippers from Aswan arrive in a wave mid-morning and thin out by early afternoon. Opening time or late afternoon — which only an overnight allows — is when the temples are quietest.
Around 22 February and 22 October, the dawn alignment draws large crowds and the village fills. Come for the spectacle or sidestep it, but decide in advance — these dates change everything.
An evening show projects across the temple facades — atmospheric, and only an option if you stay the night. Worth it for the setting and the cool of the evening.
The deepest, hottest south. Even in winter the midday sun is strong and there is little shade; carry water, cover up, and favour the early and late hours.
Photography is allowed around the temples; inside, rules vary and flash is never permitted, to protect the carving and the paint. Your guide will know the day's position.
Egyptian pounds and the site entrance, with small notes for tips. If you fly in on a day return, much of this is handled for you; we arrange tickets and timing either way.
This is a frontier place — calm and well-visited, but far from anywhere, with few services beyond the lodges. Bring any medication and essentials with you; there is no topping up here.
Abu Simbel is reached from Aswan, and pairs naturally with it. We build the two together, by road or air, with or without the night at the lake.
There is no pretending Abu Simbel is convenient. It is hours from anywhere, in the hottest corner of the country, and a rushed day-trip can mean arriving with five coachloads and seeing the colossi over a sea of phones. Get the logistics right, though — and especially if you can spare the night — and it is one of the most overwhelming sights in all of Egypt.
Don't let the fact that it was moved diminish it, either. Some travellers expect that knowledge to lessen the wonder; it does the opposite. You are looking at a thirteenth-century-BC temple and a twentieth-century rescue in the same glance, and both are extraordinary. Few places make you feel the reach of human ambition — ancient and modern at once — quite like this one.
The gateway to Abu Simbel, and the gentlest city in Egypt — the Nubian Nile, Philae and the islands.
JourneyTen days overland through Cairo, Abu Simbel, Aswan and Luxor — the south reached the slow, complete way.
JourneyThirteen days from Cairo to the deep south, with Abu Simbel among the high points of the Nubian leg.
Tell us your dates and how you like to travel, and we will build the deep south into a journey shaped around you — by road or air, and at the temples' quietest hours.
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