Cairo & the White Desert, 5 Days

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

Meals: picnic lunch · dinner at leisure.

At 5 a.m. your guide and driver collect you from your hotel in Cairo or Giza for the drive to Bahariya Oasis, about 350 km south-west of Cairo (around four hours). On arrival you switch to a 4×4 to cross the desert.

After lunch, visit Gebel el-Marsous, one of the best-known peaks of the Black Desert — a volcanic hill strewn with dark stones — and the Bedouin village with its cold sulphur spring.

Stop at Crystal Mountain in the Agabat valley, a ridge made of quartz crystals.

Along the way there is time for sandboarding on the high dunes.

Continue to the White Desert National Park, Egypt’s best-known desert landscape, where wind-carved chalk formations rise like giant mushrooms, animals and pebbles. Overnight in tents at the Al Haiz camp — or, on request, in Bedouin tents under the open sky, to watch the stars, the planets and the Milky Way far from city lights.

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

Breakfast at the camp and drive back to Cairo. Check in at your hotel and relax.

Meals: breakfast at the camp · 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.

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.