Cairo: Grand Egyptian Museum, Pyramids, Sphinx Tour & Lunch

Overview

Some places you visit. The Pyramids of Giza you answer to. This morning your Egyptologist collects you from your hotel, and within the hour the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World rises out of the desert in front of you — bigger, older and stranger than any photograph prepared you for.

You stand at the foot of the Great Pyramid, where 2.3 million blocks of stone were stacked into the sky forty-five centuries ago, and let your guide unravel how — and why. You walk the plateau to the panorama of all three pyramids, then come face to face with the Sphinx, its lion's body and pharaoh's gaze fixed on the horizon exactly as they have been since before Rome, before Athens, before almost everything. At the Valley Temple of Khafre you run your hand along granite that was already ancient when the rest of the world was young.

Then you cross to the Grand Egyptian Museum, the largest museum on Earth devoted to a single civilisation. Here, for the first time since Howard Carter opened the tomb in 1922, the entire treasure of Tutankhamun — more than five thousand objects, the golden mask among them — is gathered in one place. Room by room, three thousand years of a lost world are laid out in the order they were lived. You are not reading history here; you are walking through it.

Over a slow, grilled Egyptian lunch it settles in: the pyramids have quietly rearranged your sense of scale — of how long a human idea can last, and how small a single lifetime is beside it. By the time you're dropped back at your hotel, Giza has stopped being a picture on a list and become somewhere you actually stood. That is the difference this day makes.

Highlights

• ✦Stand at the base of the Great Pyramid — the last Wonder of the Ancient World still standing
• ✦Meet the Great Sphinx and the granite halls of Khafre's Valley Temple
• ✦See Tutankhamun's complete golden treasure, displayed in full for the first time since 1922
• ✦Explore the Grand Egyptian Museum, the largest museum devoted to a single civilisation
• ✦Travel with a private, licensed Egyptologist who reads the stones for you
• ✦Hotel pickup, air-conditioned transfers and an authentic Egyptian lunch, all included

Included

• ✓Hotel pickup and drop-off in Cairo / Giza
• ✓Private air-conditioned transportation
• ✓Professional licensed Egyptologist guide
• ✓Bottled water
• ✓Lunch at an authentic Egyptian restaurant
• ✓All taxes and service charges

Not included

• −General admission tickets to the Pyramids, Sphinx area and Grand Egyptian Museum (included in the All-Inclusive option, or add at checkout)
• −Entry inside the Great Pyramid (available as an add-on)
• −Drinks during lunch
• −Gratuities (optional)
• −Personal expenses

Good to know

• iChild price: ages 2-11 · Infants under 2
• iWhat to bring: Passport or ID card (a copy is accepted)
• iNot allowed: Luggage or large bags
• iPickup: Complimentary from hotels in Cairo or Giza. Long-range pickup (Nasr City, Cairo Airport, Heliopolis, Mirage City, Rehab City, Madinaty, New Cairo, New Capital or 6th of October City) can be added at checkout.
• iPickup time is within 60 minutes before your booked start time.
• iGood to know: The Grand Egyptian Museum is now fully open — all galleries and the complete Tutankhamun collection are on display.