Death on the Nile: Aswan, Abu Simbel and Karnak

Poirot is on holiday in Aswan, waiting to board the steamer Karnak, when the wealthy heiress Linnet Doyle tries to hire him to deal with her stalker. He turns her down. Christie set portions of the novel at the Old Cataract, a hotel built by Thomas Cook that opened in 1900 on the banks of the Nile, and the 1978 film was shot there too. The hotel reopened in 2011 after a full restoration as the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan.

Visitor guidance: A working hotel on the Aswan waterfront; the historic wing remains open while the newer tower wing is renovated.

The steamer Karnak is due to tour the Nile from Shellal to Wadi Halfa. Simon and Linnet try to slip away from Jacqueline by following Poirot, only to find she guessed the move and boarded ahead of them. Shellal is a small ancient village south of Aswan; today it has a little port where boats leave for the Philae temple, with a market waiting for tourists on their way back. The story circles back here at its end.

Location precision: The novel names Shellal as the starting point but not a particular quay; the pin marks the village.

Visitor guidance: Boats to Philae still leave from the small port here.

When the Karnak docks at Abu Simbel, Linnet narrowly avoids being crushed by a large boulder that falls from a cliff. Jacqueline is the obvious suspect, until it turns out she never came ashore. Poirot later names the culprit as Pennington, her trustee, who had speculated away her inheritance. The great rock-cut temples of Ramesses II date to the 13th century BC and were moved in 1968 to higher ground to save them from Lake Nasser, about 230 km south-west of Aswan.

Visitor guidance: About 300 km from Aswan by road.

Wadi Halfa is where the steamer turns round. Poirot's friend Colonel Race comes aboard for the return voyage and warns that a secret political agitator may be among the passengers. The very next night Jacqueline, drunk and furious, shoots at Simon in the lounge. The Wadi Halfa of Christie's day was a Nile port for steamers from Aswan; the old town was destroyed by flooding after the Aswan High Dam was built, and the modern city lies on Lake Nubia.

Location precision: The pin marks the modern city; the old river port of Christie's day was flooded in 1964.

In the 1978 film the falling stone is moved from Abu Simbel to the Temple of Karnak at Luxor, where it narrowly misses the Doyles; the film shows both temples visited the same day though they are some 480 km apart. The production spent seven weeks on location in Egypt in late 1977. Karnak is believed to be the second most visited historical site in Egypt, after the Giza pyramids, and part of the city of Thebes, which joined the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979.

Visitor guidance: Only the Precinct of Amun-Re, the part most visitors see, is open to the public.