Aswan in three days
Three days is where Aswan stops being a stopover. It adds the west bank, the quarries and a whole afternoon with nothing in it — and that empty afternoon is the part people remember. This is the length we would pick.
Morning — Nubian Museum. First, deliberately, before any village or temple.
Afternoon — The corniche, the souq, tea. Do not schedule a site.
Evening — Felucca at sunset.
Morning — Philae, early, with ninety minutes on the island.
Afternoon — Unfinished obelisk in the low sun, twenty minutes at the High Dam on the way.
Evening — Nothing. This is the point of a three-day trip.
Morning — Boat across for St Simeon early, while the sand is cool.
Afternoon — Elephantine — the excavation and then the villages.
Evening — Qubbet el-Hawa at four for the inscriptions and the view, if the legs are willing.
Abu Simbel and Lake Nasser. Neither fits in three days without wrecking one of them, and a fourth day is the honest answer.
Three days buys you an empty evening. That sounds like a waste and it is the single biggest difference between people who liked Aswan and people who found it fine.
Three days is the length we would pick if somebody asked once and did not want a discussion. Four if Abu Simbel is in.
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