Hotels in Cairo

Cairo is exhausting and extraordinary in roughly equal measure. The pyramids of Giza stand right on the city's edge — smaller-feeling and more mobbed by touts than imagined, yet still overwhelming — and the Grand Egyptian Museum nearby now houses the Tutankhamun collection in fitting style. In the centre, Khan el-Khalili's bazaar lanes and the Nile corniche carry a thousand years of city life, soundtracked by permanent traffic.

Haggling and baksheesh are part of the rhythm; patience is the essential currency. Stay on Zamalek, the leafy Nile island, for calm, embassies and the best restaurants, or out in Giza with a pyramid-view rooftop if the ancient sites are your first priority — accepting a long drive to everything else.