Car Rental Cairo - Exploring Cairo

Cairo’s traffic is mad, and road rules seem irrelevant in favour of a cacophony of blaring horns. You’re better off taking a taxi tour, which you’ll find difficult to avoid. These hustlers are found in all tourist spots and offer ridiculously cheap prices, with the tour inevitably ending up at gem and perfume shops full of very aggressive salesmen. Hire a car and then hire a driver (with his photo album of sights to select from.)

In addition to the Pyramids at Giza, the Citadel, Coptic Cairo and Islamic Cairo (see mini guide section), there are further interesting sites to discover.

The Manial Palace Museum, built in the early 20th century for a royal, has interesting palatial interiors. Heliopolis is Cairo’s newer upmarket suburb, offering respite from the city, and some great shopping if you can cope with haggling.

South of Giza are the less impressive but much older pyramids of Zosar at Saqqara. Twenty kilometers south of is the quieter Dahshur fields and pyramids of 4th and 12th dynasties. From here you can see the fields of the fertile Nile basin that feed the country.

Alexandria is an important and ancient maritime city on the Mediterranean coast with some fascinating sites. There are several sun-soaked resort towns along this stretch of Mediterranean coast near Alexandria, such as Sidi Abdel Rahman.

Wadi Natrun, a long, narrow depression in the desert just west of the Delta region, shelters several ancient Coptic monasteries.