A Day Trip to Cairo from Cyprus

I went to Egypt for one day by flying from Paphos to Cairo in August 2007. It took one hour to get there. I booked the trip with a travel agent in Paphos and it cost £200 cyprus per person travelling with Louis Travel.

The air trip was a good flight and it included food (breakfast).

The day was packed with lots of things to do. We arrived at Cairo and was quickly transported to a coach, which took us to our first destination - Citadel of Saladin.

The coach drove through Heliopolis, an elite residential suburb of Cairo our professional guide pointed out places of interest and introduced us to the long history and rich culture of Egypt 'en route' to our first highlights, being a mosque called Alabaster Mosque of Mohamed Ali. We spent some time here inside the mosque walking around it.

Our next stop was the Pyramids of Giza and the Mighty Sphinx. Our coach guide gave us lots of information, such as don't take your belongings when walking around. Take as less as possible, because you will be stopped along the way and asked to buy souvenirs. We walked around the pryamids and paid £1 cy to get inside the pryamid, which was indeed very squashy and tight when walking down steps. It is dark inside and during August the heat was unbearable. If you don't like being claustrophic then don't bother going inside the pryamids. There is only a tomb down the bottom once inside. I did it just for the experience of knowing what it would feel like.

All around this area of the Pryamids was very dusty and hot, as it was August. I wanted to travel to Cairo at this time only because I had a friend visit me here in Cyprus and she wanted to go with me.

After this we went to a five star hotel called the Meridan hotel where we sat and had a four course lunch. The food was excellent. Some excellent Egyptian spreads were laid out for us.

Afterwards, we visited the Papyrus Institute and shopping at oriental bazaar, where I bought an Egyptian 18 carat gold chain and pendant with my name written on it in Egyptian. I also bought an Egyptian painting scroll with my name written on it in Egyptian again.