Day 1 - Cairo
Our first full day in Cairo, we spent the morning visiting the Cairo Citadel aka the Citadel of Saladin. The citadel is a fortress built 1176–1183 and overlooks Cairo. There are 4 mosques within the compound. We visited the Mosque of Muhammad Ali built 1832-1853. It is particularly ornate because of its alabaster/covered walls.
Following the citadel visit, we visited The Egyptian Museum. Built in 1902, it’s the oldest Egyptian archaeological museum with over 120,000 items in its collection. It has a number (17?) of mummies, but its claim to fame are the numerous artifacts of King Tutankhamun’s tomb including his golden burial mask. These will be moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) when it is fully operational.
In the evening, we went to the Khan el-Khalili market which was a bazaar dating from the 13-16 centuries. It is s massive labyrinth of narrow streets and thousands of shops selling everything imaginable from tourist trash and trinkets to gold work and fabrics and everything in between. The streets were densely packed with locals and tourists. It was a little reassuring to always see our security guard on the periphery of our group checking out our surroundings. We finished the evening with a meal of typical Egyptian foods. Good, but I won’t be seeking out any Egyptian restaurants in Houston.

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Day 2 - Cairo
Today we visited two major archaeological sites near Cairo. We started with the necropolis of Saqqara. Necropolis is just a 50-cent word for planned cemetery.
Saqqara was built around 2670 bc and it covers 7x1.5 km. It is thought only about 30% of the structures have been discovered and restoration started. It contains the Pyramid of Djoser, the oldest complete stone bldg. This pyramid is also called the Step Pyramid for obvious reasons. There are 16 other pyramids at the site. There is also the tomb of King Titi known for its abundant hieroglyphics on the walls as well as stars adorning the ceiling of one of the chambers. And the tomb of King Kagemni, which is known for still-brilliant colors on the tomb wall engravings. The color pigments are made by grinding various minerals and charcoal and are very resistant to fading.
En route to lunch and our afternoon site visit, we made a perfunctory stop at a carpet factory that made high quality (with prices to match) carpets from silk, wool or Egyptian cotton, considered some of the best in the world. The interesting thing is that many of the carpets are made by fairly young children, some with their family some not. The children work half a day at the factory learning the trade and then go to school half a day. For this they get a stipend and have health insurance etc.
If there is anything considered iconic about Egypt it is the pyramids. In the afternoon, we visited the Pyramids of Giza, the necropolis for the ancient capital of Memphis. There are three large pyramids here with the Great Pyramid, the tomb of King Khufu, being the largest at 481 ft tall. This pyramid was built around 2600 BC and took 20 yrs to construct. It is the only remaining site of The Seven Wonders of the World. The exact methods used to construct these huge monuments is still much in debate due to the size and quantity of the stone blocks needed. Although the surface of the pyramids is quite rough today, at one point, the pyramids were clad with high quality limestone, some of which can still be seen on the top of the middle pyramid, the tomb of King Khafre. Unfortunately, most of the cladding was scavenged over the centuries for use in new construction in the city. The third pyramid is that of King Menkaure. There are three much smaller pyramids at the site that were built for queens. Also, on site, is the Great Sphinx, which is much smaller than most photographs would suggest. Built from the bedrock from one block of stone, the Sphinx was constructed to guard the pyramids. And the amazing thing is this whole complex is literally at the city’s edge.
In the evening, we were treated to an ultra-luxurious New Year’s Eve buffet at the Fairmont. Needless to say, we didn’t make it to midnight.