Cairo and Giza

One city, four Cairos

Cairo is Egypt's largest city, and visitors mainly see four parts of it, some distance apart.

Giza, on the west bank of the Nile at the edge of the desert, holds the pyramid plateau and, about 2 km away, the Grand Egyptian Museum.

The centre, on the east bank, revolves around Tahrir Square and the historic Egyptian Museum. To the south, Garden City lines its large hotels along the Nile Corniche; in the middle of the river, Zamalek island is the residential district of embassies, galleries and cafés.

Historic Cairo, further east, is the medieval city: Fatimid Cairo, the Citadel and the great cemeteries. It has been on the World Heritage List of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) since 1979.

Old Cairo, to the south, covers Fustat, the first Arab capital: it holds the Coptic quarter and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.

Distances matter in a city this size. Sabaro advises grouping visits by district, one part of the city per day, and choosing your hotel according to what you want to see first.

The pyramids in historical order

Giza is the image of Egypt, but it is the culmination of a story that begins further south. Visiting the sites in chronological order shows how the pyramid came about.

• Saqqara, about 40 km south-west of Cairo, holds the Step Pyramid of Djoser, built around 2686-2667 BC. The site is large: nobles' tombs, the tomb of Mereruka, the Serapeum (underground galleries where the Apis bulls, incarnations of the god Ptah, were buried) and the Imhotep Museum. The inclusive ticket costs 1,400 Egyptian pounds (EGP) for a foreign adult, against EGP 600 for site entry alone.
• Dahshur, a little further south, shows the attempts of Sneferu, first king of the 4th Dynasty: the Bent Pyramid, begun and then completed with a broken slope, and its neighbour the Red Pyramid, a smooth, complete pyramid. The site is far less crowded than Giza and costs EGP 200.
• Giza holds what came next: the Great Pyramid of Khufu, built around 2589-2566 BC, then those of Khafre and Menkaure, his son and grandson, and the Great Sphinx. According to Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, it took about 3,800 years for a building to exceed the height of the Great Pyramid.

The Giza plateau ticket, EGP 700 for a foreign adult, does not include the inside of the pyramids: the Great Pyramid, the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure, the tomb of Meresankh III and the Workers' Cemetery are sold separately. Saqqara and Dahshur combine in one day with a driver, and Memphis, the ancient capital, lies on the way. Prices, supplements and the Cairo Pass are detailed in Sabaro's guide to Egyptian site tickets.

Three museums, three collections

Cairo has redistributed its collections in recent years; it helps to know what is where.

• The Grand Egyptian Museum, in Giza, open to the public since 4 November 2025, shows Tutankhamun's treasure in full for the first time, with more than 5,000 objects, along with the Khufu Boats Museum. Tickets are booked online for a set date and time slot; everything is covered in Sabaro's guide to the Grand Egyptian Museum. Allow up to four hours.
• The Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square, the historic museum in the centre, holds around 170,000 objects, according to its director quoted by AFP (Agence France-Presse) in June 2025: the treasure of Yuya and Thuya, Tutankhamun's ancestors, and the treasures of Tanis, including the gold funerary mask of King Amenemope.
• The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, in Fustat, displays the royal mummies. Twenty-two mummies of kings and queens, including Ramesses II and Hatshepsut, were moved there from Tahrir Square in an official procession on 3 April 2021. The museum also opens in the evening, from 6 pm to 9 pm local time; entry costs EGP 550 for a foreign adult.

Sabaro suggests the Grand Museum on the same day as the pyramids, since they are neighbours, and the other two museums on another day, one with the centre and the other with Old Cairo.

Historic Cairo on foot

Cairo was founded in 969 by Jawhar al-Siqilli, general of the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz, next to Fustat, the town born of the Arab conquest of 641. The medieval city is best explored on foot, in a day.

• Al-Mu'izz Street links two gates of the old walls: Bab al-Futuh to the north, built in 1087, and Bab Zuwayla to the south, in 1092. The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities counts twenty-nine monuments along it, from the Fatimid period to the Muhammad Ali dynasty: the al-Hakim Mosque, the Qalawun complex, the Bayt al-Suhaymi house and the al-Mu'ayyad Mosque near Bab Zuwayla. The Khan al-Khalili bazaar lies along the way.
• The Mosque of Ibn Tulun, built from 876 to 879, predates the founding of Fatimid Cairo. Its minaret with a spiral ramp recalls that of Samarra, in Iraq.
• The Citadel, ordered by Saladin in 1176 and completed around 1207, remained the residence of Egypt's rulers until the mid-19th century. The Mosque of Muhammad Ali, built in 1848, overlooks the city. Entry costs EGP 550 for a foreign adult, 8 am to 5 pm local time.
• Coptic Old Cairo, within the walls of the Roman fortress of Babylon, brings together the Hanging Church, built at the end of the 4th century on the ruins of the fortress, the Ben Ezra Synagogue, the oldest in Egypt, and the Coptic Museum, opened in 1910, with about 16,000 pieces.

On a first visit, a guide saves time in Fatimid Cairo: the monuments are many, tucked into busy shopping streets, and their opening hours vary. Clothing that covers shoulders and knees is appropriate for mosques and churches.

Where to stay for your kind of trip

• At the foot of the pyramids. Giza suits a stay centred on the pyramids and the Grand Museum. Marriott Mena House, a hunting lodge dating from 1869, is less than 1 km from the pyramids and 2.1 km from the Grand Museum; some rooms look out on the pyramids. Sphinx Airport, west of Giza, receives direct European flights from easyJet, Wizz Air and Edelweiss.
• On the Nile. Garden City and the Corniche suit the centre, historic Cairo and Old Cairo. Four Seasons Nile Plaza is 2.2 km from the Tahrir Square museum; Fairmont Nile City has a rooftop pool on the 25th floor.
• Both. For a four-night stay, Sabaro suggests two nights in Giza followed by two nights on the Nile: each part of the city is then visited from the nearest hotel.

In town, ride-hailing apps are widely used; for Saqqara, Dahshur or a busy day, a car with driver is simpler.

The rhythm of the day and the year

Archaeological sites open early, and both light and cool air are best in the morning: Sabaro recommends the pyramids first thing and historic Cairo in the late afternoon, when the streets come alive. Times are local: 2 hours ahead of London for most of the year; from late March to late April, take off one hour, as Europe has already switched to summer time and Egypt has not.

On Friday, the day of the main weekly prayer, it is best to avoid mosques at the time of the midday service. The Grand Museum stays open until 9 pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the Museum of Civilization opens every evening: two ways to fill the end of a day.

The 1991-2020 normals of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for Cairo airport give the measure of the seasons:

• From November to March, days of 19 to 25 °C average maximum and cool nights, around 10 °C in January. This is the best time to walk around the city.
• April and October remain pleasant, around 28 to 30 °C.
• From June to September, the average maximum reaches 33 to 35 °C: sightseeing is done early in the morning and in the evening.

It hardly rains, about 25 mm a year. Ramadan 2027 is expected to begin around 8 February according to astronomical calculations; museums shorten their hours during the month.

Autumn 2026 is busy: the 34th Arab Music Festival at the Cairo Opera House from 20 to 30 October, the contemporary art exhibition Forever is Now on the Giza plateau from 4 to 28 November, and the 47th Cairo International Film Festival from 11 to 20 November.

How many days, and what to combine

Sabaro recommends three full days, four to also see the museums of the centre and Old Cairo:

• Day one: the Giza plateau early in the morning, then the Grand Egyptian Museum.
• Day two: Saqqara, Memphis and Dahshur, with a driver.
• Day three: historic Cairo on foot, from Bab al-Futuh to Bab Zuwayla, then the Citadel.
• Day four: Coptic Old Cairo and the Museum of Civilization in the morning, the Tahrir Square museum in the afternoon, a felucca or dinner on the Nile in the evening.

Cairo is the starting point of most trips to Egypt:

• Luxor and Aswan: about a 1-hour flight to Luxor, or the overnight sleeper train, which leaves from Cairo Upper Egypt station, in Bashtil. A Nile cruise then links the two cities.
• Alexandria: the Talgo train takes about 2 h 30 from Ramses station. A day is enough for the main sites; a night there gives you the Corniche at sunset.
• Fayoum and Wadi Natrun: two day trips, one to the Fayoum oasis and its lake, the other to the Coptic monasteries of the desert.
• The Red Sea: Hurghada or Sharm el-Sheikh are a domestic flight away, to end the trip on the beach.