"We must consider teaching the Egyptian Revolution in schools,” British Prime Minister David Cameron recently said. A slightly radical thing to say, especially for a Conservative, but his point is taken. In New Faces of Egypt, Carey Johnston—recently returned from the country—com¬bines a close look at its ancient treasures with a rolling seminar on its new, revolutionary, still unsettled reality. And she confirms that our leader will be much-admired Maher Haggag, “a Renaissance man,” one of our travelers writes, “a sensitive and learned guy with a knack for making things happen, who seems to know everyone.”

We’re thrilled to return to Egypt for many reasons. At the top of the list is its people, “the greatest people on earth,” Austrian president Heinz Fischer has said (“and they deserve a Nobel Prize for Peace,” he added). Under Maher’s tutelage, we’ll take a look at the Pyramids and the classic sights of Egyptian antiquity, and we’ll also get a feel for the new Egypt, visiting Tahrir Square with a veteran of the Revolution of 25 January, as it’s known, and spending a lively afternoon at newly energized art galleries.

Then we’re off to Luxor and a revelatory, relaxing, seven-night Nile cruise aboard a sweet and nifty dahabeya. Carey has arranged some delightful shore excursions and meals, giving us an unusual chance to experience the Nile’s bustling riverside life. As the great 19th-century traveler H. M. Stanley wrote, “To those who wish to be wise, to be healthful, to borrow real pleasure from a serious life, I would say, come and see the Nile.”

Back in 460 BCE Herodotus wrote—looking back even then on 25 centuries of recorded history—that “Egypt is an acquired country, the gift of the river.” The ancient Egyp¬tians took advantage of that gift by building a civilization almost alien in its grandeur, ennobling the Nile’s banks with stunning monuments to their own overweening sense of destiny, places like the Temple of Horus at Edfu, the ruins of Kom Ombo, and (of course) Abu Simbel, where in 1817 Captain Charles Irby gazed upon the statue of Ramses II and imagined the great pharaoh addressing him with lofty, but still not entirely inaccurate disdain for “your boasted civilization and progress [that] could not match this edifice [which] will be standing here, unchangeable, long after you [are] utterly forgotten.”

Days 1: arrive in Cairo • Day 2: visit Pyramids, Sakkara, Dahshur, Solar Barque Museum, special picnic lunch • Day 3: Islamic Cairo, mosques, museums, etc. • Day 4: Revolutionary Cairo, Tahrir Square visit with an activist, afternoon visit to avant-garde art galleries, much discussion • Day 5: fly to Luxor, board dahabeya • Day 6 - 11: sailing the Nile • Day 12: disembark, excursion to Abu Simbel, fly to Cairo for farewell dinner with Egyptian family • Day 13: homeward bound.

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