5 Days in Cairo

The Great Pyramid was built for the pharaoh Khufu around 2600 BC, over about 26 years. It stood 146.6 m (481 ft) tall and was the tallest man-made structure on Earth for more than 3,700 years. Today it's 138.5 m, because most of the smooth white limestone casing was removed over time. What you see today is the bare core, which is why the sides look like giant steps.

Enter at the new Visitor Center and the Great Gate, buy your ticket at the self-service machines and walk or take the shuttle that links the main stops. Walk all the way around the base before anything else. From the corner you can see how it sits against the desert sky, and the blocks up close are bigger than you expect. Skip the "free" offers and the men who walk beside you explaining things, you'll meet them in the camel stop below.

You go in through a low passage, then climb a steep ascending corridor that is barely over a meter high in places, through the soaring Grand Gallery and on to the King's Chamber. It's hot, stuffy and a little claustrophobic, and the chamber itself is bare, so weigh the price and the squeeze.

If you're fine with tight spaces, it's worth doing once, because the Grand Gallery is a real piece of engineering. If not, Khafre's pyramid is the better deal: the interior costs about 4.5 EUR (280 EGP), the corridor is a little wider and it ends in a chamber with the original granite sarcophagus lid.

The pyramid of Khafre, Khufu's son and successor, is 136 m high and looks taller than the Great Pyramid because it stands on higher ground. Next to it Menkaure's is the smallest of the three at about 62 m, and the small pyramids and tombs around the Great Pyramid belonged to queens and nobles.

East of the Great Pyramid is the tomb of Queen Meresankh III, a granddaughter of Khufu and a queen of Khafre. It's cut into the rock and still painted with scenes of daily life, and almost nobody goes in. Ask at the ticket office whether it's open, because status changes (about 3 EUR, 200 EGP). The Menkaure interior is a separate ticket too (280 EGP on the ministry list), and it's also worth asking whether it's open.

Riding a camel or horse at Giza is the classic image, and the scams around it are classic too. The offer is cheap, then once you're on top the price becomes 50 dollars a head, or the handler won't bring you down until you pay more. The same thing happens with "free" hats, headscarves and photos that end in a demand for cash.

If you want to ride, agree the full price, the route, the duration and the currency before you mount, take a screenshot of the deal and pay at the end. A short circuit costs roughly 200-400 EGP. The desert viewpoint behind the pyramids is a loop of about 30 minutes. A polite, firm la shukran (no thank you) and steady walking handle most of the rest.

Finish the plateau on the east side, where the walk from the pyramids ends at the Great Sphinx. It's carved from the limestone bedrock of the plateau itself and faces east, towards the sunrise. It's the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt. Scholars still argue about whose face it carries: Khufu or one of his sons, Djedefre or Khafre.

Because it faces east, an afternoon visit finds the face in shade, but the crowds are thinner. The enclosure is entered separately, near the Valley Temple, and the plateau ticket covers it.

Back in Downtown, dinner is koshari at Abou Tarek on Champollion Street, a koshari house that grew from a street cart. The national dish is a layered mountain of rice, lentils, pasta and chickpeas under spicy tomato sauce and crispy onions, with a splash of garlic vinegar and hot sauce on the side. It's cheap, quick and exactly what you want after a day in the sun.

Order a medium bowl, stir everything together and eat it with the little spoon. It's a lunch dish for most Egyptians, so the place is busy at noon and easier in the evening.

The Grand Egyptian Museum was announced in 1992, took more than twenty years to build and opened in full on 1 November 2025. It's the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilization. You enter under a glass roof and a transparent facade, with the pyramids visible through it, and an 11 m, 83-tonne statue of Ramesses II standing in the middle.

The Grand Staircase behind it climbs six stories and is lined with more than 60 objects, leading to the 12 main exhibition halls. The ticket includes the Tutankhamun Galleries, the Main Galleries, the Grand Hall, the Grand Staircase and Khufu's Boats Museum, and nothing more.

For the first time the complete collection of Tutankhamun is in one place: 5,398 pieces from his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, displayed in a 7,500 m2 section of the museum. The funeral mask is the one everyone comes for, but the whole thing is the point: the gilded shrines, the chariots, the beds, the sandals, the small things a boy-king took to the afterlife.

Go first thing, when the halls are calm. Photography is allowed in most of the museum but not in designated areas of these galleries, and there's no flash, tripod or selfie stick anywhere. The rest of the Tahrir collection stays where it was, which is day five.

The museum complex has a commercial area, and a break halfway through is not optional. Four hours of galleries on an empty stomach is how people end up skipping the Main Galleries. Outside food and drink aren't allowed in, so eat what the museum sells and have a cup of tea before you go back up.

Hours and menus change, so look at the signs inside rather than trusting a guide, and don't expect much beyond sandwiches and coffee.

Climb the stairs to the Main Galleries, which tell Egyptian history from the Predynastic Period to late antiquity. The museum holds an estimated 100,000 artifacts, at least 20,000 of them on show for the first time. It's hard to know where to stop, so pick two or three halls and stay with them.

The burials of Yuya and Thuya, the parents of Queen Tiye, are not here: they stayed in Tahrir, which is day five.

This is the Solar Boat that used to sit in its own museum by the Great Pyramid. In 1954 an Egyptian archaeologist clearing the south side of the pyramid found a sealed pit, and in it a boat of Lebanese cedar in about 1,200 pieces, buried for Khufu's journey in the afterlife about 4,600 years ago. In August 2021 the whole boat was moved to the GEM on a remote-controlled vehicle.

A second boat from a neighboring pit is being conserved and reassembled in front of visitors, so what you see may change from visit to visit. It's included in your ticket.

Finish with something slow, once you're out of the museum and across the city, which can take a long time in the evening traffic. Feluccas, the traditional sailboats, wait along the Nile corniche in Garden City, across from the Four Seasons hotel. Agree the price before you board and pay after the ride, or you may get much less than you paid for. The loud public boats with music are fun for half an hour but not restful.

On the water the city's noise drops away, the lights come on along the bridges and the day settles. Dress warmly, because it gets cool on the river after dark from November on.

The Step Pyramid of Djoser is the first pyramid ever built, and the earliest colossal stone building in Egypt. It went up in the 27th century BC for the pharaoh Djoser, in six tiers, originally 62.5 m high and covered in polished white limestone. Tradition credits it to Imhotep, the architect who is often called the first named architect in history.

Walk across the huge courtyard of the funerary complex and look at the pyramid in terms of what came next: here the builders were still stacking tiers on a mastaba, and the true smooth pyramid first appears at Dahshur, which is where you go this afternoon. Going inside the Step Pyramid costs extra (about 4.5 EUR, 280 EGP) and may be closed, so ask at the gate.

The Imhotep Museum stands at the foot of the Saqqara necropolis and is a good place to understand the site before you walk it. Allow half an hour, no more, and ask at the gate whether it's covered by your ticket.

Saqqara is more than the Step Pyramid. The necropolis holds the pyramids and tombs of later Old Kingdom officials, many with carved and painted walls. Ask at the gate which are open on the day, because that changes. If you have time, the Serapeum, the underground burial place of the sacred Apis bulls of Memphis, is also here, with a separate ticket (about 5.5 EUR, 340 EGP).

On the way to Dahshur you pass Mit Rahina, the village by the ruins of Memphis, the ancient capital. The site is now an open-air museum, small but quick, built around a giant colossus of Ramesses II, and the village has simple places for lunch: the standard order is grilled chicken or kofta with rice, salad and bread, or ful and ta'ameya if you want something lighter.

Tell your driver in advance that you want a simple local lunch, not the tourist buffet.

The Red Pyramid at Dahshur was built for Sneferu, the father of Khufu, and it is believed to be Egypt's first successful attempt at a true, smooth-sided pyramid. It is the third largest in Egypt. It was not originally red: it was clad in white Tura limestone, and when the medieval builders of Cairo took the cladding, the reddish core showed. Locals call it the Bat Pyramid.

You go down a long shaft into the chambers. The inside is included in the ticket, and the man at the tunnel entrance who asks for baksheesh for sitting there is not owed anything. It's a stooping, hot descent, and you may be almost alone inside, which is the real luxury after Giza.

Sneferu's other pyramid is an experiment that went wrong, in plain view. The Bent Pyramid starts at a steep 54 degrees and changes at 47 m to a shallower 43 degrees, which gives it the bent look. It's one of Egypt's early attempts at a pyramid, and the builders clearly changed course halfway.

Stay for the late afternoon light, with the desert quiet around it. The interior is sometimes closed to protect it, so don't count on getting inside.

The Citadel was begun by Saladin in 1176 on a spur of the Mokattam hills, and for nearly 700 years it was the seat of Egypt's rulers. From the terrace you look out over the whole city and its minarets.

The Muhammad Ali Mosque, sometimes called the Alabaster Mosque, was built between 1832 and 1857 by the ruler who is often called the founder of modern Egypt. It was built in an Ottoman and European-influenced style rather than the traditional Cairene one, and its walls are covered in alabaster. Take off your shoes at the entrance. Then see the older Al-Nasir Muhammad Mosque and, if you have energy, one of the Citadel's museums.

Walk down the hill from the Citadel to the square, where two mosques face each other. The Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan was built between 1356 and 1363 and is considered one of the most impressive monuments in the city, and the scale alone is overwhelming.

Next to it Al-Rifa'i is much newer, from 1911, and holds the tombs of royal family members, including the last Shah of Iran. If you only enter one, choose Sultan Hassan.

Bab Zuweila, the southern gate of the old city, marks the start of Al-Muizz Street, and the streets around it are full of lunch. Look for the plain places with a queue of Egyptians: a ful and ta'ameya counter, a koshari bowl or a shawarma stand where the meat turns on a vertical spit and gets shaved into flatbread with tahini and pickles.

Eat quickly and walk it off. The best street food here costs a couple of euros and the hygiene advice is simple: go for the busiest place and avoid anywhere empty.

This is the spine of the Fatimid city, a street lined with mosques, madrasas and merchants' houses from the Fatimid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods. Walk north from Bab Zuweila. The Qalawun complex was built by a sultan between 1284 and 1285 and holds a hospital, a madrasa, a mausoleum and a mosque, and it's regarded as one of the major monuments of the Mamluk period.

A few minutes further is Bayt al-Suhaymi, an Ottoman merchant house of the 16th-17th century that is possibly the best-preserved in Cairo, little visited and quiet. By the time you reach the northern gate, Bab al-Futuh, you'll have walked about a thousand years.

Walk back south from Bab al-Futuh to Al-Azhar, the first mosque of the new Fatimid capital, founded in 970 and dedicated in 972. The university attached to it is the second oldest continuously run in the world, after Al-Qarawiyyin in Fez.

It's an active mosque, so dress modestly (long trousers or skirts, covered arms, a scarf for women, shoes off at the entrance) and come outside prayer times. It is also a quiet break after the street.

The Khan el-Khalili is the great bazaar of Cairo, a maze of lanes selling perfume, spices, gold, brass lamps and every souvenir you didn't know you wanted. It dates to the Mamluk era and is named for one of its old caravanserais. It's touristy and loud, and the hassle is real, so go in with a plan and say la shukran a lot.

Bargain, start at about a third of the first price and be ready to walk away. Shop for spices, tea and cotton rather than the plastic pyramids, and keep an eye on your pockets in the crowds. The lights come on at dusk and the whole thing finally makes sense.

El Fishawy is a café inside the bazaar that says it has served tea since 1773 (some historians give 1797) and is said to stay open around the clock, though it's wise to check late at night. The mirrors are old and the tables spill into the alley. Naguib Mahfouz, the Nobel-winning novelist, was a regular.

Order mint tea or Turkish coffee (say how sweet you want it) and, if you smoke, a water pipe in the "double apple" flavor. It's a tourist favorite, so prices are higher than in a normal ahwa, but a half hour here watching the lane is worth it.

Start with the mosque that began it all. The Mosque of Amr ibn al-As was founded in 642, after the Arab conquest of Egypt, in the settlement of Fustat, and it was Cairo's first mosque. It has been rebuilt several times, so don't expect the 7th century, but the site is the point.

It's open to visitors outside prayer times, so dress modestly and leave your shoes outside. The Christian quarter is a short walk away, a reminder that Cairo's religions grew on the same few streets.

The Hanging Church, officially the Church of the Virgin Mary, is one of the oldest churches in Egypt, and it is suspended over a passage between the bastions of the Roman fortress of Babylon, which is where the nickname comes from. Inside, the wooden roof is supposedly shaped like Noah's ark, and the icons are worth a slow look.

It's a working church of the Coptic Orthodox Church, so be quiet and dress modestly. Entry is free.

The Coptic Museum was founded in 1908 by Marcus Simaika and houses the largest collection of Coptic Christian art in the world. The facade is modeled on the 12th-century Al-Aqmar Mosque, and the collection traces Egypt's history through Coptic art.

Plan an hour and a half and expect it to be quieter than the other museums on this trip, which is a gift after the GEM.

Walk the lane to the Church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus, named for two early Roman martyrs and among the oldest in Cairo, with a nave decorated by 12 columns. It's open roughly 9 am to 4 pm.

Close by the Ben Ezra Synagogue, also called the Geniza Synagogue, is Egypt's oldest surviving synagogue, from the 9th century, inside the shell of a 4th-century church. Local folklore puts it where the baby Moses was found. There is no active congregation, and it's now a museum. Entry is free, donations welcome.

Take the metro or a ride back to Downtown for lunch, a district full of cheap, quick and good places. The best bets are a counter for ful medames with a ta'ameya sandwich, a koshari shop or a bakery for feteer, the layered flaky pie, savory or sweet, that Cairenes eat as a meal.

For a sweet ending, look for a pastry shop with a tray of basbousa in the window and umm ali in a clay dish. Both are covered in the food section below.

The pink Egyptian Museum is a 1902 building, and for a century it was where you went to see Tutankhamun. That is over. The complete Tutankhamun collection moved to the GEM, and the royal mummies went to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat. Tahrir isn't closed, though. It's being repositioned as the museum of the longer story and keeps a huge reserve collection.

What you still come for, according to the ministry: the complete burials of Yuya and Thuya, the treasures of Psusennes I and Tanis, the Narmer Palette that shows the unification of Egypt, and the statues of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. Displays get rearranged, so ask on the day what's on show. Allow two hours, three if you're a fan. It is a dusty, crowded, wonderful old building.

End the trip the way most Cairenes end the day, in a coffee house (ahwa) with plastic chairs on the street. Order tea or Turkish coffee, a water pipe if you want one, and watch the street. There are thousands of them across the city.

Downtown around Tahrir Square is a good place to start. Foreigners are made welcome, and in Downtown and the tourist areas women alone or in groups should expect nothing more than the ordinary hassle.