From pyramids to rooftop bars, your guide to the best sights in Egypt’s capital city.
Cairo is chaos. It’s a family of five on a motorbike, no helmets. It’s a horse and cart on a highway, trotting alongside trucks and buses and cars. It’s an inner city roundabout with no give-way rules and horns honked at will, to a background of call to prayer blasting from multiple minarets.
In nearby Giza, apartment blocks are built within a metre of each other, so close you could hold hands across the balcony with someone in the opposite building.
Cairo is loud and dirty and distracting and – actually – a whole lot of fun.
Most Egyptian river cruises will begin with a few days here, where you’ll explore the sprawling capital city’s big hit sites. I visited with Viking, and made the most of our organised excursions and free time to explore under my own steam. Here’s how I recommend you spend three days before or after sailing the Nile.
Cairo is home to more than 22 million people and, on ground level, it’s difficult to get a true sense of its size and scale. A 20–minute drive to the Citadel of Saladin gives not only the chance to explore the impressive 19th–century Muhammad Ali Mosque, but also a vantage point to look out over the city and its rooftops, high–rise hotels, temples and towering minarets. On a clear day, you’ll be able to see the pyramids across the city in Giza.
The Ottoman–style mosque alone is worth the trip, with its alabaster facade, open courtyard and copper clock tower, leading to a cavernous prayer hall with intricately decorated ceilings and beautiful stained glass windows casting magical light.
Visitors are allowed to enter the complex from 8am to 5pm. To enter the mosque itself, dress modestly, with covered shoulders and knees. Men are advised to wear long trousers.
The new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), due to officially open this month, is the shiny new attraction in Cairo’s crown, but if you’re in the city for a few days, it’s worth checking out the older museums as well.
The Egyptian Museum houses more than 150,000 items, spanning thousands of years of history.
While a lot of the Tutankhamun collection has been moved to the GEM, you’ll still find some impressive treasures here – for the time being, at least – including the jewellery and nesting coffins found in the young pharaoh’s tomb.
You’ll have to jostle for space among the crowds of tour groups, but it’s worth it – your mind will be blown by the thousands of years of history on display.
If you’ve still got room to absorb more, head across the city to Old Cairo to visit the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC). The museum’s star attraction is its Royal Mummies Hall, where you can see the mummies of 22 ancient kings and queens, including Ramesses II, Hatsheput, and Seti I (who you’ll learn much more about from the Egyptologists on your cruise as you continue your journey down the Nile).
When jetlag hit, we were happy to find the easiest option for dinner, and with seven restaurants on–site, dining at our hotel was perfect. We chose Jayda Nile Terrace, an Egyptian–Lebanese restaurant with open–air dining, and views over the river of the stunning sunset.
Try local delicacies, like calf–feet soup and stuffed pigeon, choose from an extensive range of mezze – like hummus, fattoush, labneh, and vine leaves – or opt for a mixed grill, which consists of a selection of meats and vegetables, served at your table on a mini charcoal grill.
When our eyes started to droop, we were glad we only had to travel a few floors up in the elevators, rather than sit in an Uber crawling through the crazy Cairo traffic.
Wandering Zamalek in the north of Gezira Island was one of the highlights of my stay. The neighbourhood on the man–made island in the middle of the Nile felt more like the peaceful residential boulevards of Paris or Budapest.
Tree–lined, wide streets are home to embassies, luxury hotels, boutiques, art galleries, and cafes, and it felt completely safe walking around aimlessly, browsing stores.
We stopped for coffee at Sufi Books and More, where we sat among the book–lined walls and digital nomads working on laptops, then stopped at Gelato Mio, a small shop with 20 flavours and affordable prices (less than NZ$7 for two cups).
I discovered this place thanks to Google Maps and was glad I’d looked it up in advance – if we’d just wandered past, we would have missed it entirely. Huge dark wooden engraved doors show no sign of whether the restaurant is open or closed, but trying the door, we arrived in what felt like a bohemian cafe from another century.
The traditional Egyptian restaurant, with secluded nooks and crannies and vintage furniture, is a great place to try some national specialities like molokhiyya, a gelatinous spinach and garlic soup, and reasonably priced Egyptian wines served by the glass. There are other branches elsewhere in the city, but the Zamalek outpost is said to be the best.
We’d been intending to visit the strangely intriguing Aquarium Grotto Garden, once a private garden for royalty and aristocrats, and now a walled public attraction. Designed by an Italian architect and built in the 1860s, it’s home to artificial grottoes and man-made limestone caves, with mummified fish and reptiles in the former aquarium tanks. We arrived just as it was closing (visitor hours are Wednesday to Monday, 9am-5pm), so instead decided it was time for a refreshing beer.
We found just the spot for a sundowner at Zamalek Rooftop Bar – although this was another place we could easily have walked past, as there’s no obvious signage.
We were beckoned in by the security guards in the glass–fronted lobby of Zamalek Hotel, then took a cupboard–like elevator to the fourth floor, followed by a short flight of stairs. Just when I thought we’d been lured into some kind of dangerous tourist trap, we arrived at a rustic rooftop with views across the Nile’s right bank, where hotels like Sofitel, St Regis and Fairmont were shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight.
The menu had cheap beers, strange cocktail concoctions like the Rooftop Kir (white wine and instant Nescafe – tried and not recommended), snack menus, and genuinely warm, welcoming service.
For a fun finish to a day of exploring, head to Khan el–Khalili Bazaar, Cairo’s oldest marketplace, which dates back to the 14th century.
Explore the narrow alleyways and browse the stalls and shopfronts – although be warned that every stallholder will encourage you to buy from them. “I don’t know what you want, but I have it,” was one bold shopkeeper’s opening gambit.
If you’re looking for gifts to bring home – spices, incense, jewellery, lanterns, carpets, leather, Egyptian cotton sheets – you’ll find them here. Bartering is expected.
Al–Muizz St is one of the city’s oldest thoroughfares and, as part of Historic Cairo, is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Now pedestrian–only, it’s considered the largest open–air museum of Islamic architecture in the world, with landmarks including the Al–Hakim bi–Amr Allah Mosque, one of Cairo’s largest and oldest, and Bab Zuweila and Bab al–Futuh, the monumental gates that once protected the city. You’ll also find markets, shops and regular cultural performances.
You might be tempted to go straight to the Great Pyramids in Giza, but your first stop should be Saqqara, where you’ll find the Tomb of Kagemni and the Pyramid of Djoser.
Enter the tombs to see beautifully preserved carvings and hieroglyphs representing Egyptian religion, culture and daily life during the Old Kingdom.
Then make your way across the Saqqara necropolis to see what’s believed to be the first pyramid ever constructed, dating back to 2650BC.
These two sites will give you a good understanding of the evolution of pyramid construction – from flat tombs (mustabas), to tombs stacked on top of each other in steps like Djoser, to the final stage, and your next stop – the Great Pyramids themselves.
Seeing in person one of the world’s most famous tourist attractions after years of looking at photos, videos, and movies runs the risk of being a little underwhelming.
But for me, visiting the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx was just as exciting and awe–inspiring as I’d hoped it would be.
We visited in early September, the end of summer, with temperatures high in the 30s – which meant crowds were minimal and manageable.
Vendors were pushy but not to the point of annoyance. You can buy everything from a pyramid bookmark to a camel ride, although consider the latter carefully if you’re concerned about animal welfare. Reports vary on how well the camels are cared for.
Remember that if a local vendor offers to take a photo for you, or volunteers to be in a photo with you, they will expect to be tipped afterwards. Carry cash or politely decline the offer.
Set to be the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilisation, the GEM is an absolute must for any visit to Cairo. Twenty–three years in the works, the museum officially opened on November 1 and is set to become one of Egypt’s most-visited attractions.
Not only does it have picture–perfect views of the pyramids and more than 100,000 artefacts across 12 galleries, you’ll also find cafes and restaurants and an impressive gift shop with Egyptian–made souvenirs that will likely last much longer than the toy camel you bought from a vendor at the pyramids less than 2km away.
There was no better way to end our time in Cairo than a food tour I found via Airbnb Experiences. Hosted by Ahmed, the three–hour tour took us around several food stalls and restaurants in Abdeen, the downtown district of Cairo.
They were places we’d never be brave enough to try ourselves – many of the menus were written only in Arabic – but every stop was a winner.
We tried fresh juices made with sugar cane, chicken with flatbread, crisp falafel, hearty stews, arayes (similar to a quesadilla), and tooth–achingly sweet pastries. Anything we couldn’t eat, Ahmed took away in doggy bags and donated to people sleeping on the streets.
Throughout, we shared tales of our lives, families and countries, and I came away with a greater understanding of Cairo and its people.
Yes, the city still felt chaotic as our Uber careered through traffic while taking us back to our hotel. But the chaos now felt more charming than overwhelming, and I left with a great fondness for this capital city with its rich history and promising future.
CAIRO, EGYPT
GETTING THERE
Fly from Auckland to Cairo with one stopover in Dubai with Emirates, or Doha with Qatar Airways.
DETAILS
New Zealand Herald Travel visited most of these sites as a guest of Viking Cruises, on its 12–day Pharaohs & Pyramids itinerary. Some were discovered independently.