I’m eating baklava dripping with honey while watching hook-beaked black ibis fly in formation down the center of the Nile, where traditional felucca sailboats glide. The soundtrack to this age-old scene is the call to prayer singing out from nearby mosques, built in the 9th century. It’s a joy to be back in Cairo, so rich in tastes, sights, smells, and sounds. While the Great Pyramids of Giza and the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) are the uncontested highlights of a visit, time spent within the historic old center and an excursion beyond the city limits shouldn’t be missed either.
All that Glistens is Gold
It’s been 20 years in the making, cost an estimated $1 billion to build, and contains over 100,000 artifacts. Prepare to have your breath whisked away as you enter GEM’s grand hall to the sight of the colossal, 36-foot-tall, granite statue of Ramses II, some 3,200 years old. The triangular architecture of the museum is spectacular, designed to be aligned with the ancient pyramids. Two dedicated galleries to Tutankhamen hold 5,000 artifacts, including the boy-king’s solid-gold death mask decorated in lapis lazuli, turquoise, and carnelian, and his golden sarcophagus, chariot, and throne. The Solar Boat gallery is the other showstopper, housing a 4,600-year-old, 138-foot-long vessel made from cedar wood, believed to be the funerary boat of Pharaoh Khufu. A grand staircase, lined with major pieces (the sculpted head of King Akhenaten is one such beauty), leads to huge windows from where you look across the desert plateau to the pyramids. Other highlights include the unnerving statue of Scribe Nefer, with his realistic, kohl-lined eyes of polished crystal inlaid with copper; the burial treasure of Queen Hetepheres I (4,600 years old and discovered by American archaeologists nearly a century ago); and Queen Khenemetneferhedjet’s gemstone jewelry.
Walk Like an Egyptian
In 2025, the Giza Plateau was fenced off and a new state-of-the-art visitor center opened. All now enter through a central ticket office, with separate tickets needed to go inside each pyramid. (A snoop inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu.…
By Kate Wickers
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