Abu Simbel

Four seated figures of the king front the temple, each 20 metres tall. One was moved in the collapsed state an earthquake left it in.

It is a rare temple where the queen was carved at the same scale as the king. Inside, the pillars carry a row of cow headed goddess faces.

Twice a year the sun reaches the innermost chamber and lights three of the four figures. The move is said to have shifted those dates by one day.

A concrete dome was raised behind the temple and covered with earth to look like a hill. A side door opens onto that hollow space.

The lake the dam created stretches more than 500 kilometres through desert. Nile crocodiles live along the edge, so nobody wades in casually.

The north wall carries a battle scene with chariots and hundreds of soldiers. The king is cut far larger than anyone else and catches the eye first.

People whose village went under the lake built this one instead. The house walls carry the same painted patterns as the old place.

After dark light is thrown onto the temple front while a story is told. Desert nights drop hard in temperature, so a coat is needed.

The run from Aswan covers 280 kilometres with nothing but desert. No village lies between, so vehicles set off together in a group.

Nile perch grow large in the lake and anglers hire a boat for them. What is caught is sometimes grilled on board straight away.

An early New Kingdom temple counted as the oldest surviving in Nubia. In the 1960s, ahead of the rising lake, it was hauled uphill whole on rails. Reliefs in its low rooms keep much colour, and Lake Nasser cruises call here.

A temple of Ramesses II approached down a row of sphinxes. Later use as a church painted saints over the inner reliefs, leaving a wall where Ramesses seems to offer flowers to St Peter. It is reached by Lake Nasser cruise.

A fortress once on a riverside cliff, turned into an island as the lake rose. Of the Nubian sites it is the only one still where it was built. Digging continues and visitors may not step ashore; cruise boats glide close for the view.