Pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx

UNESCO World Heritage Site: Memphis And Its Necropolis (1979). The Only Surviving Wonder Of The Ancient World Three Pyramids Built For Khufu, Khafre And Menkaure Around 2600 2500 BC, With The Great Sphinx Below Them And The Whole Plateau Standing At The Edge Of A Modern City Of Twenty Million · Giza, Giza

Three pyramids stand on a limestone plateau at the edge of Giza, built for Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure in the space of about eighty years around 2600 BC, and they are the only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world still standing. The Great Pyramid held the record for the tallest building on earth for nearly four thousand years. What photographs never prepare you for is the setting: this is not a remote desert site but the western edge of a city of twenty million, so the approach runs through traffic and apartment blocks and the view from the plateau takes in both the Sahara and the suburbs. Below the pyramids the Great Sphinx sits in its quarried hollow with the valley temple beside it. You can go inside Khufu's pyramid for a separate ticket, up a steep hot passage to an empty granite chamber, and whether that is worth it depends entirely on how you feel about confined spaces. Come at opening, and budget patience for the touts.

Giza plateau on the western edge of the city, above the Nile valley at the end of Pyramids Road, Giza, Giza, Egypt

Open daily, year round, from early morning to late afternoon, with a shorter day in winter and reduced hours during Ramadan; the interior passages close before the plateau does. Entry is through the main gate on Pyramids Road or the Sphinx gate near the valley temple, and the arrangements for vehicles, electric shuttles and the new visitor centre have been changing for several years, so confirm which gate to use rather than trusting an old guidebook. The interior of the Great Pyramid carries its own ticket and a daily limit on numbers, sold on the day and gone by mid-morning in high season. Khafre's and Menkaure's interiors open on a rotation and cost much less. There is a sound and light show in the evening on most nights, ticketed separately. Metro to Giza then a taxi, or a taxi straight from central Cairo, which takes forty minutes to well over an hour in traffic.

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