Cairo: through the Great Gate at seven, the Grand Egyptian Museum by eleven

Cairo

1. 7 am1

   Great Gate on the Fayoum road, at openingCairo

   700 EGP for the plateau. Two things changed here and both catch people: the main entrance is now the Great Gate on the Cairo-Fayoum road, not the old Sphinx gate in Nazlet el-Samman, and the plateau is card-only with buses and private cars banned inside. The Sphinx gate still opens but has no ticket office, so you can only use it with a ticket already bought online. Gates at 07:00 in summer, 08:00 in Ramadan. Anyone who approaches you outside the gate saying the site opens late or is closed is selling a camel.

2. 7:20 am2

   Electric shuttle straight out to the panorama pointCairo

   The shuttle is included and loops between the visitor centre, the panorama, the three pyramids and the Sphinx. Ride it to the far end first and work back - everyone else walks up to Khufu from the gate, so the panorama with all three pyramids in line is empty at 07:30 and mobbed by 10:00. Camel and horse touts work the panorama hard; the going rate if you want it is agreed before you sit down, in writing on a phone screen, and the getting-off fee is the scam.

3. 8 am3

   Inside Khufu, before there is a queue to be inCairo

   A separate ticket on top of the plateau entry - posted at 1,500 EGP in 2026, and capped at a few hundred a day, so buy it the moment you are through the gate. It is a stooped climb up the Grand Gallery in still, hot air with no ventilation and an empty granite box at the end; if you are claustrophobic take Khafre instead for a fraction of the price. Nothing to photograph and cameras are meant to stay in your bag anyway.

4. 9:30 am4

   Down to the Sphinx and the Valley TempleCairo

   Take the shuttle down. Enter through the Valley Temple - the huge unadorned granite blocks are the oldest thing you will touch all day - and come out onto the viewing terrace beside the Sphinx's paw. Morning light is behind the Sphinx from this angle; the honest photograph is the one with the pyramid over its shoulder, taken from the terrace's far right corner.

5. 11 am5

   Grand Egyptian Museum, the 11:00 slotCairo

   Around 1,450 EGP for foreign adults, timed entry booked online at visit-gem.com - on-site sales for foreigners have ended, so turning up without a slot means turning round. Two kilometres from the plateau. Do the Grand Staircase and the Tutankhamun galleries first and the chronological halls after; all 5,000-odd objects from the tomb are shown together for the first time since 1922 and it takes ninety minutes on its own. Wednesdays and Saturdays run to 21:00 if you would rather flip this day and do the museum in the evening.

   10 min walk · 700 m
6. 1:30 pm6

   Late lunch on the museum terrace, facing the pyramidsCairo

   The whole west face of the building is glass aimed at the plateau, and the terrace is the one place in Cairo you eat lunch looking at all three pyramids without a tout. Prices are museum prices. Card only, like everything else on this day.

   14 min by train or taxi · 14 km
7. 4 pm7

   Khan el-Khalili and a shisha at El FishawyCairo

   Allow an hour in traffic from Giza; leave at 15:00 if it is a weekday. The tourist lanes off Al-Hussein square are a gauntlet - walk one street further into the coppersmiths and the gold souk and the tone changes completely. El Fishawy has been open since the 1770s, is deliberately touristy, and is still the right place to sit for forty minutes with a mint tea while the alley works around you.

   12 min walk · 850 m
8. 6 pm8

   Sunset over the city from Al-Azhar ParkCairo

   Ten minutes from the Khan, small entry fee, and it is where Cairenes go rather than visitors. Built on what was a 500-year rubbish mound; the restored Ayyubid city wall runs along one edge. Walk to the lakeside terrace on the west side - the whole medieval skyline of minarets is between you and the sunset, and the Citadel is lit behind you. Eat at the hilltop restaurant rather than the lakeside one; same view, better food.