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Egypt Popular Places to Visit

Top 15 Places To Visit In Cairo

Cairo is one of the world's great megacities and the capital of Egypt. As beautiful and as rich in historic finery as it is confounding and an assault on your senses to first-time visitors. Egypt's capital has so much to offer travelers. The main tourist attraction everyone is here to see is the Giza Pyramids on the city's doorstep, but the city

Kom El-dikka

Nobody thought much of the ancient rubble mound in central Alexandria until, in 1947, they decided to clear the site to make way for new housing. Instead, the area known as Kom el-Dikka ("Mound of Rubble") revealed a whole swag of ancient ruins including a small Roman theater. Excavation work commenced, and today, this park area includes the remnants of

Corniche

Downtown Alexandria's wide waterfront road is as much a symbol of the city as any of its monuments. It's here that you get a real feel for the era of cosmopolitan elegance and decadence that marked this city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Much of the architecture from this era still stands along the Corniche, though these

Fort Qaitbey

Walk the long shorefront Corniche road heading west, and you'll finally arrive at Fort Qaitbey. It may be a poor substitute for what was once the site of the mighty Pharos Lighthouse - one of the seven wonders of the ancient world - but this squat and dinky fort has been standing guard over Alexandria's eastern harbor since 1480. The

Bibliotheca Alexandrina

A reimagining of Alexandria's ancient Great Library, this gorgeously designed cultural center contains a host of museums as well as one of the modern world's most ambitious libraries. Its architecture - a giant sun disk - presides over the waterfront Corniche, while inside, a huge reading room can hold eight million volumes. Below the main library, visitors can explore a

Temples Of Abydos

The grand necropolis complex of Abydos is one of the oldest necropolises in Egypt and is associated with the first Egyptian capital of Thinis. It was here that kings and high court dignitaries were buried during the 1st and 2nd dynasties, and the rituals of kingly burials were first celebrated to symbolise the transitory and recurrent character of all earthly

Banana Island

If you've had your fill of temples and tombs for the day, there is no better way to relax in Luxor than to take a felucca ride to Banana Island. Five kilometers upriver from Luxor, this teeny palm-shaded island is the perfect chilled-out contrast to the history-filled treasures of the West and East Bank. Hop on a felucca in the

Deir El-medina

Deir el-Medina is home to a small temple, the remnants of a workers' village (where the artisans of the royal tombs lived), and the tombs of the workers themselves. It's well worth a visit for the wall paintings adorning the tombs, which are a vibrant depiction of daily Egyptian life. Don't miss the Tomb of Sennedjem who was a 19th-dynasty artist.

Mortuary Temple Of Seti I

The Mortuary Temple of Seti I is dedicated to Amun and to the cult of the king's father Ramses I. Left unfinished by Seti I, it was adorned by Ramses II with reliefs and inscriptions, which vie in quality with the contemporary work at Abydos. The temple was originally 158-meters long, but all that now remains is the sanctuary with

Valley Of The Queens

The tombs in the Valley of the Queens mostly belong to the 19th and 20th dynasties. A total of almost 80 tombs are now known, most of them excavated by an Italian expedition led by E. Schiaparelli between 1903 and 1905. Many of the tombs are unfinished and without decoration, resembling mere caves in the rocks. There are few incised