Time Travel to Egypt

Location: Cairo, Egypt

Introduction:

We’re always a little apprehensive about visiting third-world countries because it takes us out of our comfort zone. Even though our primary objective on this trip was to visit Dubai, we just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit Egypt given its close proximity. Our daughter has been fascinated by ancient Egyptian history stimulated by children’s books such as Mummy Cat. Thus, we set aside three days based in Cairo and arranged a local guide and driver for two of the days. This would help us acclimate and allow us to maximize our time while still leaving a day to go off exploring on our own.

Sights Visited:

The Giza Pyramids and Sphinx are the big draw. They were impressive and we chose to go inside the great pyramid and felt that it was worth it but it was tight and warm with a steep ascent and not for everyone. We also visited Saqqara where the Step Pyramid is located. We enjoyed the ruins here even more, especially the colorful hieroglyphics.

The Egyptian Museum was interesting but numerous artifacts had already been relocated to the new museum being built in Giza. We really liked the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. The Royal Mummies exhibit was quite impressive and they offered an immersive Kimet Kids educational classroom where our daughter was taught by locals about ancient Egyptian life. She absolutely loved it.

We picked up some souvenirs for Adelaide at the Khan el-Khalili Bazaar Souks. It helped to have our guide with us to assist in the price negotiations. The day that we were on our own, we did some shopping and took an Uber to visit the Al-Azhar Park & Playground, which is where the locals go. This made us non-Arab tourists a novelty. We had fun interacting with some of the local children who used us to practice the English that they were learning in school.

Accommodations:

We spent four nights in the Steigenberger Hotel El Tahrir. The one-bedroom studio suite was showing some age but was good enough. It was centrally located and directly across the street from the Egyptian museum that is being relocated to Giza.

Food and Drink:

We ate two nights at our hotel out of sheer convenience. It offered an extensive buffet but we ate off of the a la carte menu and the food was decent. One night we ate at Pane Vino, an Italian restaurant at the InterContinental Hotel. The food was average but the view of the river Nile made up for it. On our last night, we went for an authentic Egyptian experience at Felfela. It had an exotic ambiance with caged birds and aquariums which our daughter enjoyed. However, the food was just ok. We might have liked it better if they hadn’t run out of some of the menu items we ordered. Imported beer and wine are hard to come by in Egypt and super-expensive when you do find them. We tried one of the local beers and it was good enough. We brought some duty-free wine from France with us that we enjoyed in our room as we wound down at night.

Transportation:

We prearranged an independent car service to/from the airport with Rimo tours. It was much more reasonable than the hotel’s car service. Driving in Cairo is kind of a free-for-all and not something we’d want to do. Fortunately, we had a driver for two days and we used Uber a few times, which worked well and was incredibly cheap. We also did our share of walking and felt safe doing so in the vicinity of our hotel.

Shout Out:

We definitely benefited from hiring a private tour guide for two days. Thank you Rasha for all of your insights. You can book a tour with her by clicking the link on her name or at this site here: https://egyptsunset.net/

For Your Amusement:

With a name like this, we’re not sure this fast-food chain would make it back home.

Highlight:

It’s interesting to experience a destination through the eyes of a child. While the pyramids, sphinx, hieroglyphics and mummies all got her attention. Adelaide seemed most fascinated by the large number of stray dogs and occasional cat that inhabited the ruins.