This private 4 day spiritual Cairo tour follows the sacred thread of Egypt’s capital from the pyramids of Giza to the cave churches of Mokattam. In three full days of sightseeing with your own Egyptologist guide and driver, you stand before the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx, walk the galleries of the Grand Egyptian Museum, pray in the churches of Coptic Cairo where tradition places the Holy Family, climb to the Monastery of Saint Simon the Tanner and finish inside the walls of Saladin’s Citadel and the lanes of Khan el-Khalili.
It is a tour for people who want to feel Cairo rather than tick it off. The Coptic churches are working parish churches, not museums. The monastery is a living community carved into the cliff above the city. The Alabaster Mosque of Muhammad Ali still fills for Friday prayers. Your guide explains each place in its own terms: pharaonic, Christian and Islamic.
You choose your hotel level and your room. Gold hotels are Egyptian 5-star standard properties, about 3.5-star by Western standards; Platinum hotels are Egyptian 5-star deluxe, about 4-star by Western standards. Triple, twin and single rooms are all available, so the tour works for families, couples and solo travellers alike. It is the Cairo-only version of our Egypt spiritual tours; if you have a fifth day, see the 5 Day Cairo and Alexandria Spiritual Tour.
An Egypt Best Vacations representative meets you inside the arrivals terminal at Cairo International Airport with a signboard and helps with visa and passport formalities. Transfer in a private air-conditioned vehicle to your Gold or Platinum hotel and check in. The rest of the day is free to rest before the tour begins.
Meals Plan: No Meals Included
After breakfast your guide and driver collect you from the hotel for the Giza Plateau. Stand at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World, then see the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure and the Great Sphinx that guards the causeway to Khafre’s valley temple. Your guide explains what the pyramids meant to the people who built them: a machine for the king’s rebirth, not a monument for its own sake.
After lunch at a local restaurant, continue to the Grand Egyptian Museum on the edge of the plateau, where the grand staircase of royal statues leads up to the galleries holding the complete Tutankhamun collection, displayed together for the first time. Return to your hotel in the late afternoon.
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
Breakfast, then drive to Coptic Cairo, the Christian quarter built within and around the Roman fortress of Babylon. Visit the Hanging Church, raised over the fortress gate towers, and the Church of Abu Serga (Saints Sergius and Bacchus), whose crypt is held by tradition to be where the Holy Family sheltered during their flight into Egypt. Step into the Ben Ezra Synagogue, where the Cairo Geniza documents were found.
After lunch, drive up into the Mokattam hills to the Monastery of Saint Simon the Tanner, a complex of churches carved into the cliff face above the city, with reliefs of Bible scenes cut into the rock. It is the largest church in the Middle East by seating and the spiritual heart of the community that lives on the hillside below. Return to your hotel.
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
After breakfast and check-out, visit the Citadel of Saladin, the fortress begun in 1176 on a spur of the Mokattam hills that ruled Egypt for nearly seven centuries. Inside, enter the Alabaster Mosque of Muhammad Ali, whose domes and twin minarets define the Cairo skyline, and take in the view across the old city to the pyramids.
After lunch, walk through Khan el-Khalili, the bazaar that has traded since the 14th century, with its spice, copper and gold lanes and the historic Fishawi coffee house. Your driver then transfers you to Cairo International Airport for your departure flight. If you would like to continue to Luxor, Aswan or the Red Sea, ask us and we will build it around this tour.
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
