As part of our tour in Egypt, we visited Alexandria for a day. The drive from Cairo takes about 3 hours. Our first stop was a visit to the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, which is one of the seven wonders of the Middle Ages dating back to the 1st century. It was complex with many underground rock cut tombs in 3 levels. It combined the features of three different art styles, ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman. Pictures were not allowed in the catacombs. Next, we had time to explore the Pompey pillar, which stands 28m high. It was erected as a symbol of gratitude towards the Roman emperor that saved Alexandria from a famine in the 4th century. At the same site, there was remains of the Temple of Serapis. We then proceeded to the Fort of Qaitbay from the 15th century, which was build to protect Egypt against potential Ottoman invasion. It was built at the same site of the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria. From this fortress, you will get great views of the Mediterranean Sea. After that, we had lunch at a seafood restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean. Following lunch, we were supposed to visit the Montazah gardens and view the Royal Family palaces but we decided to make our day shorter instead since we were so tired. We visited the New Library of Alexandria that is considered one of the biggest in the world with 70,000 square meters of reading space arranged in 11 cascading levels. At the end of the tour, we drove back to Cairo.
I typically don’t book tours because I’m a pretty good planner and it’s usually much cheaper to do everything yourself. However, after I made up my mind that I wanted to see Alexandria, Luxor, and Cairo all in one trip, it became much more convenient to just go through a tour company. I also tried looking up flights and trains to the cities outside of Cairo and compared them to the tour price, and I found that I actually saved money. It was also nice not planning for hours on end for a change. We booked the 5 day/4 night Cairo, Luxor, and Alexandria tour on TourRadar.com. The tour operator was Go Discovery Travel. The tour code is #110679. This tour is perfect if you have limited time and are interested in seeing as much as possible. That’s how I like to travel! We had private tour guides and drivers the entire tour, this was so nice so that we could take as much or as little time as we needed and alter the itinerary when we wanted to. We explored churches, mosques, museums and old markets in Cairo. We of course saw the incredible Giza pyramids. Additionally, we went to Alexandria to get a glimpse of the Greek and Roman era in Egypt. We also flew to Luxor and visited the biggest open air museum in the world. https://www.tourradar.com/t/110679 Day 1:On arrival, a representative from Go Discovery Travel was waiting for us at the Cairo airport. He helped us with visa procedures, customs, and luggage claim. The visa costs $25 and is purchased before border control and baggage claim. Bring USD. It is a very easy process and nothing needs to be done beforehand. The representative then had his colleague, Medo, transfer us to our hotel for check in. We stayed at Le Meridien Pyramids Hotel in Giza. It had an awesome view of the pyramids! Because we arrived in Cairo a day before our tour started, we booked an extra night. This gave us the opportunity to see Giza the first day of our trip on our own. The options they suggested for the day included a sound and light show, a dinner cruise, a camel ride during sunset/sunrise, or a quad bike for one hour around the pyramids. We decided to do a quad bike around the pyramids. The tour company quoted us $50 for it but I told them I saw it on Viator for $15 so they gave us that price instead. Medo picked us up and took us to lunch at Abou Shakra right outside of the pyramids. The restaurant provided an excellent view. After the tour, we went back to the hotel to relax and have a drink by the pool while gazing at the pyramids for a couple hours. Then, we were picked up for our pre-booked Sound and Light Show. I didn’t read about what this show would be like but to be honest, I expected a bunch of people to be standing around looking at a strobe light show that lit up the pyramids. I was not expecting a 50-minute long Egyptian story and background about the pyramids. It was very informational and a good introduction to our day in Giza, although a little boring. After the show, we went back to the hotel and ate dinner at the hotel restaurant. They had excellent food! This concluded our first day. Day 2: LuxorAfter going to bed around 10PM, we got a call 30 minutes later saying that our itinerary had changed an that we would be heading to Cairo airport at 2AM to do our day tour in Luxor. This was supposed to be the following day but they said they had problems with plane tickets. This was very frustrating to hear that we would only have a couple hours of sleep. Because we were leaving so early, the hotel provided us with a breakfast box to go. When we arrived in Luxor, a private tour guide was waiting for us. First, we crossed the Nile River to the West Bank. We were mezmerized by the Valley of the Kings that had more than 60 royal rock cut tombs dating back to 1450-900 B.C. We were allowed to explore 3 tombs of our choice. Note that you must purchase an extra photo ticket if you wish to take pictures. We decided not too, but regretted our decision. We were able to sneak a couple pictures but people were getting thrown out and forced to delete all their pictures. After the Valley of the Kings, we were taken to a local shop where a guide showed us how carvings made out of different materials are done. After some demonstrations, we were given free time to explore the family shop. We ended up purchasing a very cool Egyptian carving. Next, we headed to the beautiful, unique terrraced Al-Deir Al-Bahari Temple. We were also amazed by the colossi of Memnon. We then took a lunch break at a restaurant before continuing our tour on the East Bank. We had time to explore the Karnak temple, which is the biggest temple on earth. After, we were taken to a Papyras museum where a local guide showed us how papyaras paper is made. We had the option of purchasing paintings on papyras paper. We also saw the Luxor Temple at sunset. At the end of the tour, we hung out at a café across from Luxor Temple to kill time before we were transferred back to Luxor airport to catch our flight to Cairo airport where our representative took us back to our hotel. Day 3: Cairo and GizaThis day was dedicated to the highlights of Giza and Cairo. We started our morning with a free buffet breakfast in the hotel. Shaimma, our egyptologist tour guide, picked us up in the hotel lobby. She was an excellent tour guide! We began our tour by heading to the Giza plateau. There we explored several monuments
