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Photo: Roland Unger, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Nubian villages of Siou and Koti occupy this island. Also home to the famous Nilometers and the Temples of Sati, Khnum (ancient rams-head god) and Pepinakht-Heqaib. Movenpick resort is on the island. The Aswan Museum (adult: LE100, student LE50, March 2022) at the southern end of the island houses items found during excavations on Elephantine Island, and includes access to the neighbouring archaeological site. Also, be careful of unsolicited tours from locals, which will result in a request for baksheesh. There is regular boat taxi to Elephantine Island run by the locals for LE5 for one return crossing for tourists (you usually pay LE5 to go and don't pay to come back).
Elephantine is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. The archaeological digs on the island became a World Heritage Site in 1979, along with other examples of Upper Egyptian architecture, as part of the "Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae".
© OpenStreetMap contributors
El Nabatat Island
Lord Kitchener, who owned the 6.8-hectare island in the 1890s converted it to a botanical garden. Filled with birds and hundreds of plant species and palm trees. Accessible by motor boat (LE200 for two people, which can be haggled down to LE100), via a felucca tour, or via a rowboat from Elephantine island (ask a local near where boats are lying on the western shore).
When you're in Aswan you'll have to walk along the Kornish Al Nile (Corniche) at least once. It is a pleasant stroll, made even more pleasant by the fact that you can walk right into the Ferial Gardens at its southern end. They are a park that is as relaxing as it is beautiful.
Modern Coptic cathedral dominating the skyline of southern Aswan.
Tomb of the 48th iman of the Islami sect and his wife. Visible from the outside, although closed to the public.
The faded former glory of the Fatimid empire can be seen on the crumbling graveyard.
Small shrine/tomb of a local sheikh and holy man. The climb is rewarded with amazing views of Aswan, the Nile river and the surrounding landscape, richly evoked in the translation from the Arabic of the place name, "the dome of the wind'.