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Cairo cityscape along the Nile at sunset
The Great Sphinx and the Pyramid of Khafre at Giza, Cairo
The Pyramids of Giza under a dramatic sunset sky near Cairo
The Mosque of Muhammad Ali at the Cairo Citadel with palm trees

Things to do in Cairo

Known for

Ancient pyramids, an Islamic city and Pharaonic treasures

Must-see landmarks

Pyramids of Giza, Grand Egyptian Museum, and Citadel of Salah El-Din

Best time to visit

October to April, once summer's extreme heat eases

World Heritage

Historic Cairo, UNESCO World Heritage listed since 1979

One day itinerary in Cairo

1

Pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx

1 hour 45 minutes

The Great Pyramid, raised for Khufu around 2589 to 2566 BC, stands beside the pyramids of his son Khafre and grandson Menkaure, with the Great Sphinx couched below. The plateau opens daily from 08:00 to 16:00, and electric buses run between the pyramids and the Sphinx. The Grand Egyptian Museum is about a 45 minute walk, or a short taxi ride.

2

Grand Egyptian Museum

1 hour 30 minutes

Egypt's new museum calls itself the world's largest museum dedicated to a single civilisation, its galleries built around the complete Tutankhamun collection, shown together for the first time since its discovery, plus the Grand Hall and Khufu's boats. It is roughly a 20 minute drive from here to the Citadel of Salah El-Din.

3

Citadel of Salah El-Din and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali

1 hour

Salah El-Din began this hilltop fortress in 1176, later the seat of Egypt's rulers. Inside, Muhammad Ali Pasha's 19th century mosque is nicknamed the Alabaster Mosque for its marble panelling, its twin minarets the tallest in Egypt at 84 metres each. Khan el-Khalili is a further 39 minute walk, or a short taxi ride.

4

Khan el-Khalili and Al-Muizz Street

1 hour

Cairo's bazaar has traded from these alleys for generations, spilling onto Al-Muizz Street, the Fatimid-era spine running between the gates of Bab al-Futuh and Bab Zuwayla. Spice sellers, silversmiths and lantern makers work the lanes past mosques that UNESCO lists among Historic Cairo's monuments. Al-Azhar Mosque is a 3 minute walk further on.

5

Al-Azhar Mosque

20 minutes

Commissioned in 970, this was Cairo's first congregational mosque, founded soon after the Fatimids raised their new capital, and it grew into one of the Islamic world's great centres of learning, lending the city its old nickname, the City of a Thousand Minarets. Its courtyard closes this walk through Islamic Cairo.

What else to see in Cairo

  • Egyptian Museum holds the largest collection of Pharaonic antiquities in the world on Tahrir Square, opened in 1902, with treasures such as the Narmer Palette and the royal statues of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure.
  • National Museum of Egyptian Civilization displays the Royal Mummies Hall in Fustat, home to 22 royal mummies, 18 kings and four queens, moved here from the Egyptian Museum in the 2021 Pharaohs' Golden Parade.
  • Ibn Tulun Mosque rises around a vast sunken courtyard in Sayyida Zaynab, raised between 876 and 879 for the city's Abbasid governor, its spiral minaret modelled on the Great Mosque of Samarra in Iraq.
  • Sultan Hassan Mosque-Madrasa faces the Citadel across Salah El-Din Square, commissioned between 1356 and 1362 as one of the largest mosques in Egypt, its four schools once teaching all four Sunni schools of law.
  • Al-Rifa'i Mosque stands opposite its Mamluk neighbour, built through the late 19th century and completed in 1912, its marble-lined halls holding the tombs of Egypt's royal Muhammad Ali family.
  • Hanging Church holds a marble pulpit resting on ten columns that dates to the 11th century and an oldest icon from the 15th, under a wooden ceiling shaped like Noah's Ark, above the gatehouse towers of a Roman fortress in Old Cairo.
  • Al-Azhar Park climbs a restored hilltop above Darb al-Ahmar with landscaped terraces and views from the Nile to the Citadel, opened in 2005 as a gift from the Aga Khan to the city.
  • Cairo Tower rises over the Nile in Zamalek with a revolving restaurant and an observation deck looking across the whole city.

What makes Cairo special

Historic Cairo grew from the Fatimid capital that the general Gawhar al-Siqilli founded in 969, a walled city of mosques, madrasas and covered markets that UNESCO counts among the world's oldest Islamic urban centres still standing. Layers of Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman building sit side by side across its old quarters, while the pyramids on the city's edge and the churches of Old Cairo add millennia more history to a single day's walk.

Neighbourhoods to know

Islamic Cairo, inside the old Fatimid walls, holds the densest run of medieval mosques and markets. Old Cairo, further south along the Nile, gathers the Coptic churches and the remains of the Roman fortress of Babylon. Downtown's early 20th century boulevards fan out from Tahrir Square, while Zamalek and Giza, on opposite banks of the Nile, hold quieter gardens and the pyramids themselves.

When to go and for how long

Winter, from October to April, brings much easier walking weather for the old city and the plateau at Giza, once summer's extreme heat eases. Three to four days cover the pyramids, the Grand Egyptian Museum, Islamic Cairo and the Egyptian Museum at a steady pace, with a fifth day free for Saqqara and Dahshur, around 30 and 40 kilometres south, or further to the Roman and Greek ruins of Alexandria, around 220 kilometres north on the Mediterranean coast.

Getting around

Three Cairo Metro lines cross the city, with some cars reserved for women, alongside a dense network of taxis and ride-hailing apps that cover the ground the metro does not reach. Central Cairo suits walking in short stretches, while Giza and Islamic Cairo, split by the Nile and several kilometres of traffic, are best joined by taxi or the shuttle now running across the pyramids plateau. The Giza plateau, the Grand Egyptian Museum beside it and the Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square are the capital's entries among things to do in Egypt, a list that runs on south to the temples of Luxor and Aswan.

FAQs about visiting Cairo