Grand Egyptian Museum: how to see it in three hours with a guide

Three hours with a guide covers the Grand Egyptian Museum properly: 20 minutes in the atrium and on the Grand Staircase, 70 minutes in the main galleries, 80 minutes in the Tutankhamun galleries, and a break on the terrace. The ticket (about 1,200 EGP for foreign adults) includes Tutankhamun; the Khufu boat museum is extra.

Minute 0 to 20: the atrium and the Grand Staircase

The 11 m colossus of Ramses II greets you inside the door. The staircase climbs past sixty royal statues in order, from the Old Kingdom to the Ptolemies; at the top a window frames the pyramids.

Minute 20 to 90: the main galleries

The twelve galleries are arranged by period and theme. A guide picks: the Khufu ivory statuette (the only image of the builder of the Great Pyramid), the Meidum geese, the statues of Rahotep and Nofret, the Amarna family, the Ptolemaic mummy portraits. Skip the rest and keep your legs for the last part.

Minute 90 to 170: Tutankhamun

Everything Carter found in 1922 in one wing: the golden mask, the three coffins, the four shrines that nested around the sarcophagus, six chariots, the thrones, the beds, the jewellery, the 130 walking sticks, the food and the wine jars. Your guide explains the discovery room by room.

Practical

• Passport or ID is checked at the gate.
• Photos without flash are allowed everywhere.
• Large bags to the cloakroom.
• The terrace café has the pyramids in view; the museum has restaurants and a children's museum.