Off up the Nile - 24 December 2007

With Sunday's fog refusing to lift all day, the prospects for an early flight on Monday were not promising. However, the weather bods predicted clearing winds and they were correct with Monday dawning crisp and clear. Gatwick was typical pre-Christmas chaos but we departed on time in a plane full of package tour-package passengers.

Paris looked stunning from the air as did the Italian lakes, a little relief from the tedium of the 5-hour flight to Luxor. There was some delay at Luxor airport as two pieces of our party's luggage had not made it with the rest but eventually we were delivered to the MS Serenade, one of 400 cruise ships on the Nile and our home for the next 7 nights.

Dinner was a special 6-course Christmas Eve banquet followed by a 'floor show' consisting of a dancer with a swirly skirt - not a patch on the one we saw in Cairo and a very flabby 'belly dancer', again not a patch on the one we saw in Aqaba. Should anyone suggest that belly dancing was a good way to loose flab and tone the body, this lady was living proof of the fallacy of that argument.