Cairo and the Pyramids
Cairo Governorate, Egypt
Cairo is two cities on one river: a medieval Arab capital of minarets, gates and inhabited cemeteries on the east bank, and on the desert edge at Giza the one ancient wonder still standing. The plateau itself sells a ticket at its gate, so the free ground here is the village streets under the pyramids, the mosque and church courtyards that still open to anyone, the Nile bridges, and the walls the city built to carry its water.
7 challenges · 34 stops
STARTERFree Ground at the Sphinx
≈ 4,500 steps2.2 mi · about 2 hoursStarter · 3 stops · 500 credStart where you live.The Giza plateau charges at the gate, so this walk stays outside it. Three places on the public side of the fence where the pyramids and the Sphinx are in front of you and nobody sells you a ticket. Flat, about two hours, best in the first hour after sunrise before the haze thickens.
STARTERThe First Stones of Fustat
≈ 20,500 steps9.7 mi · about 2.5 hoursStarter · 3 stops · 500 credStart where you live.Old Cairo, where the city actually began: a church built on the gate towers of a Roman fort, the first mosque raised in Africa, and the river bank that fed both. All three are free to enter or stand at. Two and a half hours on foot, morning is quietest.
STANDARDLions, a Bridge and an Obelisk
≈ 5,500 steps + 2.0 mi by car2.5 mi on foot · about 3.5 hoursStandard · 5 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.Modern Cairo, laid out in the 1860s to look like Paris and never finished looking like anything else. The river, the square the country argues in, and the streets between them. Three and a half hours, flat, and the bridge is worth saving for the last hour of light.
STANDARDThe Muizz Spine After Dark
≈ 6,000 steps2.7 mi · about 3.5 hoursStandard · 5 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.The thousand-year main street of Fatimid Cairo runs gate to gate and is closed to cars in the evening, when the facades are lit and the whole length becomes a walk. Five stops between the southern gate and the northern one, about three and a half hours, best started an hour before sunset.
STANDARDThe Sultan's Square and the Tulunid Court
≈ 5,000 steps + 4.0 mi by car2.4 mi on foot · about 4 hoursStandard · 4 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.Four open courts and squares under the Citadel, each one the centre of Cairo in a different century. Ibn Tulun's ninth-century courtyard, the square the Mamluks played polo in, the tomb of the man who wrote Islamic law, and the mosque that became a university. Half a day with a taxi between the last two.
ADVANCEDMamluk Domes and the Cave
≈ 8,000 steps + 9.3 mi by car3.7 mi on foot · a full dayAdvanced · 6 stops · 800 credGetting there is not the hard part.A full day down the eastern edge of the city, where Cairo buries its dead and quarries its stone. Carved Mamluk domes in a cemetery people live in, a church cut into the cliff above the rubbish sorters, the rim of the plateau, and the wall that carried water to the Citadel. Six stops, a car between them, start early.
ADVANCEDThe Rim of the City
≈ 6,000 steps + 45 mi by car2.8 mi on foot · 1 day or moreAdvanced II · 8 stops · 800 credGetting there is not the hard part.Two days and a car, working the outer ring of Greater Cairo from the desert canyon in the south-east to the barrages where the Nile splits in two. A protectorate, a Mamluk sultan's mosque, a Belgian baron's suburb and the dams that made year-round farming possible. Eight stops across roughly sixty kilometres of driving.
Counted between stops; you'll walk more at each one.
Join Travel Bause to take one on. Your crest is earned in the field and stays yours.
Sign up freeI'm a member — sign in