Egypt: The Itinerary

Egypt. The land of the prophets. The land of the pharaohs. Pyramids. Ancient temples. Mosques. Salah al-Din. Who wouldn’t want to go? Egypt has been on my list since like forever so when a friend of mine, JC, texted me, “How about Egypt?” I simply replied, “When?”

I first met JC just a few months earlier in Athens, Greece, when we were climbing up the hill to go and see the Parthenon in Acropolis. The next day we went with different tour groups to Delphi but we both got there at around the same time we ended up walking around the place together. On the third day, we decided to do an afternoon trip together to Cape Sounion to see the ancient temple of Poseidon. We have kept in touch since then. The trip to Egypt means that we’re going to meet for the second time and on a different continent altogether. How cool is that, aye?

Okay, back to Egypt trip. JC and I both agreed that our trip is going to be a free-and-easy one so we arranged everything on our own. JC, being the nerd and hoarder of travel guidebooks ( B-D ), suggested Cairo and Luxor for the 6-day trip. Cairo, mainly for the obvious, i.e. the Pyramids and the mummies, and Luxor, for Valley of the Kings. We booked our flights into Cairo (JC flying in from the States via Spain and I from Dubai) so that we would arrive at around the same time. We did the same with our flights out of Egypt. We scoured for hotels on the internet and decided on 4 different hotels. Yes, you read that right, 4 different hotels, haha! We tried to book two round trip train tickets from Cairo to Luxor via our first hotel in Cairo but unfortunately we couldn’t get hold of any tourist tickets even when we asked about it one week in advance. Apparently they’re sold out well in advance we ended up booking tickets with Egypt Air instead to fly between the two cities.

All these arrangements were done prior to our arrival and we managed to come up with a rough itinerary as follows:

Itinerary	6 Days and 7 Nights
Day 1	Cairo/ Giza + Arrive in Cairo in the evening + Head to Giza from airport + Hotel: Le Meridien Pyramids Hotel & Spa [ Check rates & availability ]
Day 2	Giza/ Cairo + * The Pyramids & Giza, incl. Pyramids Light & Sound Show + Depart for Cairo City Centre by taxi in the evening + Hotel: Novotel Cairo El Borg on Zamalek  [ Check rates & availability ]
Day 3	Cairo/ Luxor + * Egyptian Museum, Tahrir Square, Zamalek Island + Depart for Luxor by Egypt Air flight in the evening + Arrive in Luxor in the evening + Hotel: Sheraton Luxor Resort [ Check rates & availability ]
Day 4	Luxor + * Valley of the Kings, felluca ride on the Nile + Hotel: Sheraton Luxor Resort
Day 5	Luxor/ Cairo + * Hot air balloon ride, Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple + Depart for Cairo by Egypt Air flight in the evening + Arrive in Cairo in the evening + Hotel: Sofitel Cairo El Gezirah [ Check rates & availability ]
Day 6	Cairo + * Coptic Church, Masjid al-Azhar (Mosque), Khan el-Khalili, Old Islamic Cairo  + Hotel: Sofitel Cairo El Gezirah
Day 7	Cairo + * Salah al-Din Citadel, Tahrir Square + Depart for flight out of Egypt in the evening

Itinerary Footnote

* Staying true to our plan to have a free-and-easy holiday in Egypt, our original itinerary included only the cities and name of the hotels, minus the places of interests. All places of interests listed above (apart from the Pyramids and Valley of the Kings) were only decided either on the day itself or the day before. They however have been included in the itinerary above for easy reference and ideas for readers looking for a (somewhat) complete itinerary for these two cities in Egypt.

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