Not to miss

Marsa Alam

Marsa Alam is a fishing village on Egypt's Red Sea Coast. It sits on the T-junction between the Red Sea Coast road and the road to Edfu, 230km (142mi) away on the banks of the Nile. Swimming and snorkelling in the area are magnificent, but be very careful - much of the region is mined and unsigned.

About 145km (90mi) southwest into the desert is the Tomb of Sayyed al-Shazli, who was an important Sufi leader in the 13th century. His tomb was restored earlier last century, but you may not make it through the checkpoints.

Cairo

Cairo isn't a gentle city. Home to more than 16 million Egyptians, Arabs, Africans and sundry others, the 'Mother of the World' is an all-out assault on the senses. Chaotic, noisy, polluted, totally unpredictable and seething with people, the sheer intensity of the city will either seduce or appal.

Mud-brick houses lean up against towering modern office blocks, flashy cars crowd donkey-drawn carts. Cairenes see nothing strange in this. They aren't driven by the Western obsession to update and upgrade, possibly because they live in such close proximity to millennia of history (when the pollution haze lifts the Pyramids appear).

Aswan

Aswan, Egypt's southernmost city, has long been the country's gateway to Africa. The prosperous market city straddles the crossroads of the ancient caravan routes, at the 'other' end of the Nile. In ancient times it was a garrison town of importance to early Coptic Christians.

The Nile is glorious here as it makes its way down from the massive High Dam and Lake Nasser - watching the feluccas glide by as the sun sets over the Nile is an experience you're unlikely to forget. A visit to the Tombs of the Nobles is worthwhile, a highlight being the Nubian Museum.

Lake Nasser

Lake Nasser is the world's largest artificial lake. Its statistics are staggering - an area of 5250 sq km (2027 sq mi), stretching 510km (316mi) in length and between 5km (3mi) and 35km (22mi) in width. Numbers aside, the contrast between this enormous body of water and the remote desert surrounding it makes Lake Nasser a place of austere beauty.

Created when the High Dam was built near Aswan, Lake Nasser covers the land of Nubia, site of hundreds of tombs, temples and churches. Many monuments were moved from their original sites prior to the building of the dam and are grouped together at four locations: Kalabsha, Wadi as-Subua and Amada (both accessible only by boat) and, of course, Abu Simbel with its famous Temple of Rameses.

Temples of Karnak

A fitting monument to Egypt's New Kingdom power, Karnak is a mind-blowing complex of obelisks, columns, sanctuaries and pylons dedicated to the Theban gods and the glory of Egypt's pharaohs. Built and added to for over 1500 years its million-plus square metres a offer a crash course in ancient Egyptian architecture.

Although the earliest structures at Karnak date back to the Middle Kingdom, when Thebes was eclipsed by Memphis in the north, Karnak was ancient Egypt's most important place of worship in throughout the new kingdom. Called 'the most perfect of places', at its height during the reign of Ramses II some 80,000 people worked in or for the complex. At its centre was the enormous Amun Temple Enclosure, which covers more than 260,000 square metres and was dedicated to the god Amun. Most famous of all the many monuments here is the hypostyle hall, a forest of 134 papyrus-shaped columns that has stunned visitors for centuries. The temple is easily accessible from Luxor's town centre and can be seen at night if you can brave the faux-Shakespearean kitsch of the sound and light show.

Egyptian Museum

More than 120,000 relics from almost every period of ancient Egyptian history are housed in this remarkable museum. Beyond arranging the exhibits chronologically, little has been done to present any sort of context to the exhibitions but the museum's eccentricity is part of its charm; accidentally stumbling across treasures in somewhat musty rooms is half the fun.

Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx

The sole survivor of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Pyramids of Giza live up to more than 4000 years of hype. Their extraordinary geometry and age render them alien constructions rising out of the desert. The Sphinx sits nearby, a 50m-long feline character carved from a single block of stone.

There are swarms of visitors to the site, attended by swarms of camel and horse touts, but they fail to destroy the wonder. If you want a peaceful view of the pyramids, it's best to take a horse ride in the area at around 5pm - you won't see them close up, but it can be a lot more atmospheric than battling around close to the monuments.

The Pyramids at Giza are the planet's oldest tourist attraction; built by successive generations of pharaohs, they were already more than 2500 years old at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ. The wonder of the Pyramids lies in their age and in the twin mysteries of how they were built and what they were used for. Despite all the evidence, there are still those who refuse to accept that the ancient Egyptians were capable of such an astonishing achievement.

These amazing architectural accomplishments are part of a massive necropolis, or burial site, attached to the ancient capital of Memphis, south of Cairo, a city that predated the founding of Cairo by more than 3500 years. While there is nothing much left to see of Memphis itself, the monuments in which its dead kings and nobles were buried remain hugely impressive.

The key sites to visit are Giza, closest to Cairo, and the day-trip sites of Abu Sir, Memphis, Saqqara and Dahshur. The oldest pyramid at Giza and the largest in Egypt, the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) stood 146m high when it was completed around 2600 BC. About 2.3 million limestone blocks, weighing around 2.5 tonnes each, were used in the construction of this giant. Although there is not much to see inside the pyramid, the experience of climbing through such an ancient structure is unforgettable. Along the eastern and southern sides of the pyramid are five long pits that once contained the pharaoh's boats. You can see one of the boats in the Solar Boat Museum.

Known in Arabic as Abu al-Hol (Father of Terror), the Sphinx is carved from the natural bedrock at the bottom of the causeway to Khafre's pyramid. Recent geological and archaelogical survey has shown that the Sphinx most likely dates from Khafre's reign, and probably portrays his features, framed by the striped nemes headcloth worn only by royal personages. Unfortunately the monument is suffering the stone equivalent of cancer, and recent restoration attempts have sped up, rather than halted, the decay. The cheesy sound and light show held near the Sphinx is a painless, albeit pricey, way to see the Pyramids by starlight.

Dahshur

Dahshur is an impressive 3.5km-long (2.2mi-long) field of 4th- and 12th-dynasty pyramids, older cousins of the Pyramids of Giza. Of the original 11 pyramids here, only the Bent and Red Pyramids remain intact. Also worth a look are the mud-brick remains of the Black Pyramid, which contain a maze of corridors and rooms designed to deceive tomb robbers.

Pharaoh Sneferu (2613-2589 BC), father of Khufu and founder of the 4th dynasty, built Egypt's first true pyramid here, the Red Pyramid. He also built an earlier version, the Bent Pyramid. These two pyramids were the same height. They are also the equal third-largest pyramids in Egypt, after the two largest at Giza.

Many cluey travellers are choosing to visit Dahshur instead of the Giza Plateau for three reasons: the pyramid is just as impressive as its counterparts at Giza, the site is much more peaceful and the entry fee here is significantly cheaper.