Elephantine Island

Elephantine is Aswan's largest island, a green sliver in the granite-strewn Nile that has been inhabited for thousands of years, once the frontier fortress and trading gateway between Egypt and Nubia. Today it layers two Nubian villages of painted houses over the ruins of an ancient town, including the Temple of Khnum and the remarkable Nilometer that measured the river's annual flood.

Wandering its car-free lanes is half the pleasure: unhurried village life, kids playing, colour everywhere, and the Aga Khan mausoleum crowning the desert bank opposite. The Aswan Museum sits amid the archaeological site at the southern tip. Reached by a short ferry or felucca, it is a peaceful, atmospheric escape from the mainland corniche.