Photo: Leon petrosyan (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio guide to Esna, on the west bank of the Nile south of Luxor: 21 narrated stops. The first is told on board as cruise ships pass the Esna lock north of the town, where vendors row out to the ships. The walk itself is about 800 metres: from the corniche up through the covered Qisariya market, past the minaret of 1081, the Wekalet el-Gedawi caravanserai of 1792 and the old houses, to the Temple of Khnum, whose one surviving hall stands nine metres below the street. Inside are the cartouches of Roman emperors, 24 decorated columns, festival calendars, hymns written in rams and crocodiles, and an astronomical ceiling whose colours have reappeared under cleaning since 2018. The rest of the temple is still buried under the town.
21 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 17 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 3 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Esna lock, Esna corniche, Qisariya market, Emari Minaret, Wekalet el-Gedawi, Nineteenth-century houses of Esna, Temple of Khnum at Esna, Temple stairway, Temple facade.
Cartouches of the Roman emperors.
Pronaos of the Temple of Khnum, Column group of the pronaos, Festival calendars and feast texts, Cryptographic ram-sign texts, Cryptographic crocodile-sign texts, Astronomical ceiling of the pronaos, Zodiac of the pronaos ceiling, The restored colours of the hall, Priestly sacred-boat procession scene, Rear wall of the pronaos, Buried inner temple of Khnum.
Watch the water level change around the ship as the lock gates open and close.
The one surviving hall of the temple, standing nine metres below the street of the town that grew over it.
A hymn to Khnum written almost entirely with rams, each in a different pose.
The twelve signs of the zodiac, with the Big Dipper shown as a bull's leg tied to a stake.
Cleaning since 2018 has brought back the colours of the ceiling, columns and walls.
Roman emperors shown as pharaohs, from Vespasian over the entrance to Decius.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 21 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 21 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Esna — the Temple of Khnum, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
21 narration points, including Esna lock, Wekalet el-Gedawi, Temple of Khnum at Esna, Temple stairway and Temple facade. That is about 27 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1 hour on foot, plus the lock on board total, but you walk at your own pace. 21 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.