We were there in winter, which helped. The light was clear and the temperature manageable. In summer the city must be something else entirely.
Sights & Culture
The Pyramids of Giza
There is no preparation that quite works for the pyramids. You know the pictures, you know the dimensions, and none of it translates to standing in front of them, an experience that for me had been perhaps twenty years in the making since my last visit to Egypt. The three main structures, Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, are accompanied by several smaller satellite pyramids and, spread across the plateau, the remains of the workers' city that built them: housing, bakeries, breweries, administrative buildings. The workforce was not the monolithic slave labour of popular myth; much of it was organised labour, fed and housed by the state, and the archaeology of their settlement is in some ways as interesting as the monuments themselves.
Our guide brought dog food. The Giza plateau has a substantial population of resident dogs, and distributing food to them turned out to be one of the more memorable parts of the visit, a small, practical kindness in a place otherwise geared entirely towards spectacle. There is also, somewhat magnificently, a stall selling ice cream shaped like a pyramid, called unimaginatively Pyramid Bites. Whilst the name may be predictable, the flavour combinations are strange and delicious. It would be wrong not to try.
Panoramic view of the pyramids
From a little distance the plateau reads as a single composition: three principal masses, the line of the causeways, and the haze of Cairo at the edge of the frame. It is the shot every brochure promises, and it still works.
The Great Sphinx
The Sphinx sits to the east of the pyramid field, carved from a single limestone outcrop and considerably more battered than the pyramids it guards. The face is weathered almost to abstraction in places, but the body still reads clearly — lion, recumbent, watching the same horizon tourists photograph in a loop.
Citadel of Saladin
The Citadel is Cairo doing what Cairo does best: compressing a lot of history into one hilltop. Built by Saladin in the 12th century as a defensive stronghold, it became the seat of power for centuries afterwards, and today it’s the place to get your bearings: minarets in the foreground, the city falling away in every direction, and on a clear day the desert line where Cairo finally stops.
The Mohamed Ali Mosque
Inside the Citadel complex, the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha is the showpiece: pale stone, big domes, and a scale that feels Ottoman rather than Egyptian. It’s also the most “touristic” stop of the set, but it earns it — partly for the interior light and symmetry, and partly for the courtyard views back over the city.
The Hanging Church
The Hanging Church (Saint Virgin Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church) is one of those places that feels older than it looks — because it is. Built above the gatehouse of the old Roman fortress of Babylon, it’s literally “hanging” over earlier masonry. The interior is warm and wooden, with icons and screens that reward slowing down, and a calm that feels deliberate in a city that rarely offers it.
St. Sergius Church
Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Abu Serga) is smaller, darker, and more intimate than the Hanging Church. It’s famous for the crypt that tradition links to the Holy Family’s time in Egypt, but even if you ignore the story entirely it’s still worth it: stone, worn thresholds, low light, and the sense of a building that has been in continuous use for a very long time.
Church of the Holy Family Dwelling
Whether you take the tradition literally or not, the “Holy Family” sites in Old Cairo are best understood as part of a long pilgrimage map. This one is presented plainly: a place to step out of the street noise, take a breath, and let the city’s religious layers make sense. It’s not grand, but it’s sincere, and it fits the mood of the quarter.
Roman Tower
The Roman-era remains in Old Cairo aren’t a single “wow” monument; they’re a set of stubborn fragments that refuse to be erased. The tower is a good example: thick brickwork, tight spaces, and the weird perspective shift of seeing ancient fortifications embedded in a living neighbourhood. It’s a reminder that Cairo’s history doesn’t sit in neat layers — it’s interleaved.
St George Cemetery
St George’s Cemetery is quieter than most of the sights on a typical itinerary, which is precisely the point. It’s a place of family plots and names that read like a cross-section of Cairo’s communities, and it gives a different kind of scale to the city: not dynasties and empires, but ordinary lives, remembered carefully.
Museums & Galleries
The Grand Egyptian Museum
Newly opened and still drawing the crowds that come with novelty, the GEM sits at the edge of the Giza plateau with the pyramids visible from its forecourt. It is, without exaggeration, one of the finest museums I've visited, and if you've been through this blog, you know that is high praise indeed.
Twelve main galleries take you through Egyptian history from the Predynastic period to the end of the Pharaonic era, with the Tutankhamun collection, previously scattered across the old Cairo museum, finally displayed together in full. There is also a children's museum, a VR experience we didn't have time for, and a solar boat museum that was unexpectedly absorbing: the reconstructed cedar vessel has the quiet, improbable grandeur of something that shouldn't have survived at all. It felt, oddly, like the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, that same combination of extreme antiquity and extraordinary preservation. Allow more time than you think you need.
Restaurants & Bars
Koshary
Koshary is Egypt's national dish and Cairo is the right place to eat it. The version we had came from a fast food chain that started as a single cart — rice, lentils, macaroni, chickpeas, crispy fried onions, tomato and garlic sauce, chilli vinegar on the side. Entirely vegetarian, entirely filling, and genuinely good. The chain format shouldn't put you off; the food is the food wherever you find it.
Shawarma
Shawarma was the default for most meals and rarely disappointed. Cairo does it well, the bread, the meat, the pickles, and there is something to be said for a city where a reliable meal is available on almost any street at almost any hour.
The King's Head Pub
Small, friendly, and slightly improbable. A tiny bar almost someone's front room and we were the only tourists. Local beer, a plate of carrots and cucumber that arrived unrequested as a snack, and at some point in the evening, dancing. It is what it is, and it was a good evening.
Shopping
Cairo's older commercial streets have a pleasing logic to them: women's clothing in one quarter, men's clothing in another, the specialisation running block by block in a way that makes browsing feel purposeful rather than random. The smaller shops reward patience, nothing is arranged for convenience, and that is mostly the point.
Sports & Activities
The night train to Aswan
The conventional advice is to arrive at Cairo station an hour early to allow for traffic, which turned out to be accurate. The train itself was made in West Germany, the lettering on the fittings still says as much, and it shows its age honestly: worn upholstery, a track that gets bumpy in places, mattresses that are on the thinner side. But it is cared for, which is a different thing from being new, and the dinner and breakfast provided were better than many train meals I've eaten on supposedly premium services. We arrived into Aswan roughly two hours late, in the early morning. As introductions to the south of Egypt go, it was not a bad way to travel.
The Coptic and Islamic Cairo tour
A half-day tour taking in a cluster of churches, mosques, and one synagogue in the older quarters of the city. The storytelling was good, our guide moved fluently between traditions and kept the narrative going, though the relics on offer required a certain generosity of spirit. A fragment of the True Cross. The precise spot where the Holy Family rested during the flight into Egypt. The synagogue where Moses' basket was supposedly found. Whether any of this bears scrutiny is beside the point; these are sites shaped by centuries of belief and pilgrimage, and they carry that weight regardless. The buildings themselves, several dating back to the early centuries of Christianity in Egypt, are worth the visit on their own terms.