Egypt
Giza
Camel shadows stretch across sand where the last ancient wonder meets the Sahara's edge.
The heat comes off the plateau in waves, blurring the edges of limestone stacked twenty storeys high. Camel drivers call across the sand as the Great Pyramid's shadow wheels eastward, and behind it Cairo shimmers — the city stopping dead where the Sahara begins.
Khufu's pyramid went up around 2560 BCE from some 2.3 million limestone blocks, and of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World it is the only one left standing. Khafre and Menkaure complete the trio, the Sphinx crouches below, and the Grand Egyptian Museum at the plateau's edge now holds the 4,600-year-old cedar ship found sealed in a pit beside the Great Pyramid — carried there whole, overnight, on a Belgian transporter. After dark the sound-and-light show throws the story of the pharaohs across the pyramid faces while the city glows behind.
Friends
Split the pyramid interiors between you — each is ticketed on its own — then compare bruised backs over grills at the plateau's own restaurant.
- The pyramids were already a tourist draw in Roman times — the queue you join is two thousand years long.
- One area ticket opens the plateau; each pyramid interior is ticketed separately, so you choose which passage to stoop through.
- Khufu's full 45-metre solar ship waits in the Grand Egyptian Museum, minutes from the Sphinx.
- Gates open at eight in the morning, when the light is still low and the sand still cool.
At 9 Pyramids Lounge, the first restaurant on the plateau itself, mezze and grills arrive with the full pyramid view — feteer meshaltet and Umm Ali to finish.
Ten minutes' walk from the Sphinx Gate, El Dar Darak keeps the local Egyptian table at neighbourhood prices.
Chichén Itzá
Mexico
Each equinox a serpent of shadow slides down the pyramid to its stone head.
Mafra
Portugal
Bats patrol a palace library by night, guarding 36,000 leather volumes from bookworms.
Teotihuacán
Mexico
The Avenue of the Dead runs long enough to carry its own horizon.
Himeji
Japan
A white heron of a castle above the blossom: original timber, four centuries old, never taken.
Kom Ombo
Egypt
A temple split between crocodile god and falcon, mummified crocs filling the gallery beside it.
Pharaoh's Island
Egypt
Crusader-contested fortress on a Gulf of Aqaba island, four countries visible from its ramparts.
Beni Hasan
Egypt
Rock-cut tombs high on a cliff face, their four-thousand-year-old wrestlers still mid-grapple on the walls.
Philae Temple
Egypt
A temple rescued from rising waters, reassembled stone by stone on an island in the Nile.