The Great Pyramids and other Cairo, Egypt Things to Do Tips

Giza plateau is the one thing Cairo and Egypt are most famous for.
Giza is the name of a gigantic burial grounds which cover an area of 2000 square meters on a plateau. The Sphinx and the Pyramids are the principal monuments. They are the only one of the seven wonders of the world exalted by the Greeks in the 2nd century BC still extant.
The pyramids lie along a diagonal running from NE to SW, so that none of them ever hide the sun from the others. They were built by Cheops, Chefren and Mycerinus and all 3 have a burial chamber excavated in the rock and set almost in the centre of the main body of the construction.
One stands breathless in front of these colossal buildings knowing such facts that e.g there are more than 2 million cubic meters of stone blocks in the Cheops’ pyramid. Each block weighs up to 200 tons.

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Address: Al Haram Str., Gizeh, Cairo
Website: http://www.touregypt.net

The Sphinx in the likeness of the king Chefren is a monolith standing in front of the Chefren’s pyramid as the guardian of the temple of the Sphinx (Chefren). This gigantic human-headed lion is 21 meters high and 73 meters long. The Sphinx’s head is 5 meters high and the defacement is clearly visible and was caused by the Mameluke cannons. There was also a false beard added by Thutmosis IV but it fell off and is now in the Cairo museum.

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Address: Gizeh plateau, the great pyramids

The Egyptian Museum houses almost 100,000 various exhibits and nearly 40% of them have never been exhibited. Some of them can be seen outside in a beautiful garden. The treasury from the famous Tutankhamun's tomb can be seen here including the 11 kg-gold mask of this boy pharaoh.
It is always very crowded in the museum and it's probably best to have a tourist guide to explain you all the great details about the exhibits.
There is a little gift shop near the front door with a lot of postcards, bookmarks, books etc in it.

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Phone: (202)5782448
Address: Midan El Tahrir, Cairo 11557
Directions: Not far from Nile Hilton Hotel
Website: http://www.egyptianmuseum.gov.eg