The Pyramids of Giza

It takes around 4.5 hours to fly from Northern Europe to Cairo. Many of our customers choose to fly with Egypt Air, as these flights tend to be affordable with reasonable departure times and are easily combined with domestic flights. For more information, take a look at our flights to Egypt page. On your arrival at Cairo Airport, you'll be greeted by our local representative who will arrange a visa for your passport and assist with customs formalities. 

Once your suitcase has rolled through baggage claim, you'll head towards your small city hotel in the heart of Cairo. Depending on traffic it should only take you 30 to 45 minutes to get there. If you would like some advice on where to find great meals and which neighbourhoods will give you a real glimpse of local atmosphere, don't hesitate to ask our representative. If you would like him or her to guide you through the city on the first evening of your Giza Pyramids tour, just ask and he/she will join you. It's customary to tip the representative at the end of the evening if you do ask them to show you around the city. 

Early this morning, our driver will collect you and drive towards Giza. After about 20 minutes of city traffic you'll start to see two of the three pyramids appear on the horizon. They'll be your first real encounter with ancient Egypt. We'll arrange a knowledgeable english-speaking guide for your Giza Pyramids tour to explain the history of the Cheops and Chefren pyramids. Your guide will tell you all the interesting stories behind the pyramids and take care of the entrance fees for you (all entrance fees are included in the price of this trip). If you leave your hotel very early in the morning, you can also enter the Cheops pyramid for an additional fee (approximately £9) and experience the pyramids without hoards of fellow tourists. If you go for this option, you'll climb the pyramid along an improvised set of stairs, walk through small shafts and eventually enter a real burial room built completely from granite. 

After your Giza pyramids tour, you'll walk towards the legendary Sphinx. This is THE perfect place to take an iconic Egypt photo, as you'll have the pyramids in the background as well! Right behind the Sphinx you'll find a temple where ancient rituals took place as well as the mummification of the Pharaoh. You can spend as much time at the pyramids and the Sphinx as you wish before moving on to the less frequently visited pyramid of Saqqara. Along the way you'll visit a very touristy, yet interesting 'museum' where you'll learn about how papyrus is made and used for paintings (which you can purchase - naturally). 

After lunch, you'll continue on to Saqqara. Relatively few tourists come to this site, mostly because tourists usually book packages that only include a Giza pyramids tour. Not only were prominent Egyptians buried in Saqqara, so were holy animals. To this day, Saqqara is the largest archaeological site in Egypt with many hidden treasures still buried beneath the sand. At the end of the day your driver will take you back to your hotel in Cairo. As you say goodbye to your driver and guide, it's customary to tip both of them.

If you have enough time to spare, we suggest extending your stay in Cairo by one night. This will give you an opportunity to visit the world famous Egyptian Museum or the Citadel in the historic part of the city. 

After this Giza Pyramids tour, you can choose a spectacular trip through the Great Sand Sea and White Desert with our Egypt desert tour or you can head south, travelling from Cairo to Luxor. If you don't have much time to spare, you're better off taking a domestic flight to Luxor where you can continue with our Valley of the Kings tour.