Egypt - Highlights
Immerse yourself in the glories of ancient Egypt with royal mummies in the National Museum, Tutankhamen's gold, stained-glass panels and pretty pottery at the Islamic Ceramic Museum, and the Coptic Museum's religious icons and frescoes.
Leave Cairo behind for the work of powerful Pharaoh Ramses II and his Great Temple of Abu Simbel guarded by colossal statues. See the dead at Luxor's Mummification Museum. Wander the art galleries at Bibliotheca Alexandria and envy the city's riches at the Royal Jewellery Museum. Stroll through the ornately carved Avenue of the Sphinxes in Luxor, and examine the mosaics, paintings and illuminated manuscripts at St Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai.
The statuesque Sphinx guards the Giza pyramids in Cairo, and the vast Bibliotheca and Roman Amphitheatre highlight Alexandria's old and new. The Commonwealth war cemeteries at El Alamein mark the sight of huge tank battles. Travel down the Nile Valley for the Temples of Karnak in ancient Luxor, Temples of Isis at Aswan and more magnificent temples at Abu Simbel carved into the mountains.
Take the kids to the Sound and Light Show at the Pyramids at Giza, the mummies at Cairo's National Museum and the Child Museum's Activity Centre. Snorkel among luminous fish or try watersports in the warm Red Sea. Ride a donkey above the Valley of the Kings or a camel in the Western Desert.
Check out opening times during the fasting month of Ramadan. Resist pressure to take an unofficial ‘guide' for sightseeing or shopping. Women should cover hair and upper arms at mosques.
Pound Cairo's busy streets to upbeat Nour el Ain by heart-throb Amr Diab, shimmy to mournful El-Hobb Keda by late diva Omm Kalsoum, and wander around Cairo's Christian quarter to Coptic hymn Rashy Neh.
