2025/11/01
The Pyramids of Giza
In Egypt there are about 100 pyramids, but the most famous are of course the 3 biggest ones in Giza. Giza is currently one part of Cairo, one the west bank of the Nile river. So there is actually a normal city around the pyramids area, but there is a sizable chunk of land left with the 3 big (and a few smaller ones).
Getting there: I went with metro to the Giza station and then took taxi from there to the Giza pyramids ticket office.
And I went in the morning at around 8 o’clock, so it was not crowded yet when I got there.
But no matter how early you go, there are people there who want to get your money🙂 You can learn from the internet, but there are many ways how people will try to get your money. I did not find it a problem, basically people are just trying to earn their living… so with some guys I discussed a bit and exchanged some services and goodwill… and many guys I ignored… But it was also a great learning experience about how weak I am to some marketing pitches🙂
The first scam was that I was told I need to book a camel or horse ride straight away to get to the next point and there is no other way… Whereas I specifically checked beforehand that it is completely OK to walk everywhere and no compulsion to use a camel. The camel rides cost by hour… so if you plan to do a quick round, then maybe camel is a good idea… or if you want the camel experience… then it is even better. But if I want to walk around like 3-4 hours and take many stops at many places… the the camel is more a distraction than help I think.
So without any camel I went off walking and got on without much problems. In some places there were kind of small walls and chains. But it seemed these were mostly for setting limits for camels and horses. People were OK to go almost anywhere.
Now, later I ended up doing a small ride with a horse just for the fun of it, and it was not bad at all😉 However, the marketing pitch started with small 400 EGP story, and later got an option to expand by another 2000 EGP. I enjoyed the fun for full 400 EGP and declined the 2000 EGP option to go to see Saccara platou (which probably would have looked amazing).
After going to see all 3 pyramids I went to the inside of 2 of these. Going inside Khufu pyramid was quite expensive at 1500 EGP, but many people chose it and there was a long queue to get inside. I should have gone there first thing in the morning to avoid the queue, but I got distracted by the sales talk guys wanting to bring me to other places. Also it turned out I was quite ignorant on basic things. Namely I thought that the middle pyramid (which has some intact cladding tiles on top as well) is the biggest one, but it turned out that the middle one is for pharao Khafre and is not the biggest one. The right most one for Khufu (also known as Cheops) is the biggest one and where the famous King’s chamber and Queen’s chamber are located.
It was pretty interesting to climb inside the pyramid. The tunnels were pretty narrow and low… and the middle room was super hot and without any air conditioning. After I got started to go inside the pyramid we were stopped… and a small group was given privileges to go before others. This small group was a “diplomatic team”, probably ministers of some country… though I could not recognize the faces and could not say what country it was. They were probably in the Cairo for the opening of the GEM (which happened at the same day at the same time) and wanted to experience the pyramids while at it as well. But the funny thing was that all these 10 guys were fully dressed in formal suits. So they had to felt the inside 2x hotter than me with my sports type thin T-shirt only🙂
My original idea was to go to inside to Great Pyramid and to try to “feel the energy” there. To meditate a little bit. But, the climbing situation and the hotness situation was quite a lot of overwhelm already. So I completely forgot my plans and can not recall the energy level at all🙂
The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC)
I have not been to GEM yet, but NMEC is the third one of big Egypt culture museums. So I did not have any high expectations when going there… and was expecting more mummies and more stone statues…
However, this NMEC museum was actually a very modern museum with huge open spaces and quite well thought-out quality exponents. It is 180 degree approach compared to The Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which just has shelves and shelves of coffins and artefacts without seemingly even trying to curate them in some cases.
The pearl of the NMEC museum was exhibit of mummies. These were not mummy replicas, but actual real mummies. Of many most famous and most influential pharaohs. So this was super impressive. It was not allowed to take pictures of these mummies.
So you have to do Google search “cairo nmec museum mummy pictures” to get the feeling.
I thought it was very well done and very impressive exhibition.
Also the other parts of the museum had interesting things exhibited. Now, there was a whole special exhibition about clothes… but these were not very old clothes, but from recent Arabic times (1800 and 1600 etc).
- this kind of reminded me how the history of Egypt and pharaohs is kind of sad as well. 4000 years ago they were most advanced culture in the whole world. This helped their pharaohs to become powerful and also fairly rich and to rule for long time. But very many invaders wanted to get these riches to themselves and there was a regular threat of some enemy force invading. For very long time the Egyptian army techniques and army were quite strong and managed to prevail. But sometimes they failed as well. In year 300 BTC they yielded to the Greek rule and in year 30AD they got conquered by Roman Empire and later by Arab Rulers
- so the current Egypt is basically fully Arabic country. And the culture which Egypt most celebrates currently is the Arabic culture. But very long time ago this was a country without Arabs and these time no one even remembers any more…
There was also interesting small sections about old time Egyptian people making bread (which they still like making a lot) and old time Egyptian people making linen (from flax). Very simple processes, but I think they had a huge impact at the old time civilization.
- In Estonia 150 years or so ago people were also growing flax and making linen… but in Egypt around 3000-4000 years ago… they were already making 9 different sorts of linen… from the very coarse up to very fine… What an amazing level of technology!🙂
There was also some mention of Coptic Egyptians. Coptics is a branch of religion of Egypt, who are following teaching of Jesus Christ… but the influence came from olden times from Byzance (after it had broken up from the Holy Roman Empire). So they have some similarities to Russian Orthodocs Christianity. For example both are big on religious icons (iconic pictures with halos) and on having a prayer corner with said icons.
Al-Azhar Park
This was a completely different experience. Whereas all the other places I have been in Cairo are full of “chaos energy”… then this park was kind of oasis for the soul. It was possible to feel calm and peaceful here.
This park has a tiny entrance fee (50 EGP), but it is quite big. So it was interesting for me to walk around and to take pictures of the local trees and plants here. Though I am not sure how many of these were actually “local” ones. It seemed they were cultivating quite many imported trees as well (though I am no real expert).
It was nice to see many people in the park, doing small picnique’s in the park… similar to how Japanese people do “hanami” or how in London also people like to gather in parks on their free days. Hyde Park is always very popular in the weekends. And here in Cairo the vibe was very much similar.
In the park they were also playing very calming nice music all the time… which enhanced the feeling of being in the fantasy oasis. Thanks to this music the sounds of big streets from a bit further away did not reach to park at all. Very well done. Thanks to this the feeling was really calm and nice.
A big group on children ran by and many were shouting “Welcome”🙂 This is probably the first English word they learn. Very impressive.
This park also had a few super nice restaurants, which I did not try out this time.
Overall calming effect of this park was really nice. So recommended if you have free time in Cairo and want to relax a bit. Or you might explore other similar parks.
It was also close to Khan el-Khalil, so possible to continue on to Khan el-Khalil after walk in Al-Azhar Park🙂
