Cairo & Fayoum, 5 Days

Arrival in Cairo, welcome at the airport and private transfer to your hotel.

Meals: picnic lunch · dinner at leisure.

After breakfast, a short drive takes you to the Giza Plateau and the great pyramids of Khufu (Cheops), Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaure (Mycerinus), built around 2500 BC. Continue to the Great Sphinx, the lion-bodied guardian whose face is traditionally attributed to Pharaoh Khafre.

In the afternoon, travel south in your private vehicle, through palm groves and irrigation canals, to Saqqara. Here the Step Pyramid of Djoser rises from the sand in six tiers — the oldest monumental stone building on Earth and the first pyramid ever built. Visit the Pyramid of Unas, the first to be inscribed with hieroglyphic texts beneath its star-painted ceiling, and the mastabas of high court officials, whose reliefs of daily life in ancient Egypt still keep their original colours. Overnight in Cairo.

Meals: breakfast at the hotel · picnic lunch · dinner at leisure.

After breakfast, set off for Fayoum, a green and fertile region rich in natural beauty and archaeological sites, still little known to international travellers. Its marshes — fed by the Bahr Yussef canal and by the great lake Moeris, today Lake Qarun — were drained by the pharaohs of the 12th dynasty and turned into royal hunting and fishing grounds.

Drive into the sands of Wadi El Hitan to the UNESCO-listed palaeontological site at the heart of an ancient valley. Its hundreds of fossils of early whales document one of evolution’s great transitions, from land animal to ocean mammal; the fossils of sharks, crocodiles, sawfish, turtles and rays found here show that around 40 million years ago this desert lay beneath the sea.

Picnic lunch on the shore of the lower lake. In the afternoon the track to Wadi El Rayan opens onto sweeping views of desert ridges and great sand dunes.

At the end of the day, visit the village of Tunis on the southern shore of Lake Qarun. In the late 1960s the Swiss potter Evelyne Porret settled here, opening her studio and a school to teach the craft to local people; today Fayoum pottery is among the most sought-after in Egypt, and a stroll along the village’s “pottery street” is a delight.

Overnight in Fayoum.

Meals: packed breakfast · picnic lunch · dinner at the hotel.

A full day exploring the north of the oasis. Follow the northern shore of Lake Qarun, admired from above, then enter the surrounding desert plateau, rich in ever-changing rock formations. Reach the unexpected Graeco-Roman town of Soknopaiou Nesos, today Dimeh el-Siba: founded in the 3rd century BC on what was once an island, it still preserves its massive mud-brick walls and the aura of its temple to Sobek, the crocodile god.

Further north the landscape changes again at Qasr el-Sagha, a Middle Kingdom temple whose seven unfinished inner chapels keep its original purpose a mystery. Nearby lies a petrified forest: millions of years ago this arid land was a lush tropical jungle, and today the ground is scattered with tree trunks turned to stone. Return to Cairo; overnight in Cairo.

Meals: breakfast at the hotel · picnic lunch · dinner at leisure.

Breakfast and check-out with your luggage.

Morning at the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), the monumental new museum facing the Giza pyramids behind a striking façade of glass and alabaster. Beyond its countless statues and works of art, the museum presents the complete funerary treasure of Tutankhamun — more than 5,000 objects displayed together for the first time, including the celebrated golden mask of the young pharaoh.

In the afternoon, continue to Islamic Cairo to visit Al-Azhar Mosque and the famous Khan el-Khalili bazaar, whose alleys are lined with workshops and stalls selling cotton, copper, perfumes, leather, silver, gold and antiques.

Transfer to Cairo International Airport or Sphinx Airport for your departure flight.

Meals: breakfast at the hotel · picnic lunch.