Cairo...

The first thing you will notice is the traffic. Endless traffic. Be prepared to spend the majority of your day in said traffic. It's pretty relentless. Never ever ever hire a car to drive around Cairo. Promise me.

Of course the first thing to do is go in search of the Pyramids, which are (like everything in Cairo) MILES away. Cue your first experience of traffic. However they are everything they promise to be (yes there is a very big McDonald's nearby, the city of Giza is practically pushing the Pyramids into the desert, but hey, it's the fecking Pyramids!). It's magical. The last remaining ancient wonder of the world and we are lucky to be able to visit. It's very high security and money talks up here, we were allowed for around 50le to take our car up to just beside one of the Pyramids and had a short wander around.

It says no climbing on the Pyramids. More for your health and safety I think. I stubbed my toe and as I am apparently ageing my skin is no longer as tough as it once was and cue a split right open toe. Grand times. However I'd like to point out that only I could effectively kick a Pyramid and leave my DNA on said Pyramid hopefully for 1000's of years to come...Awkward.

Now if your doing Cairo for a day (we had 8 hours) then you need to get a wriggle on pretty fast into downtown Cairo to visit the Egyptian Museum. Cue your second (and worst) experience of Cairo traffic, Cairo central is not for the faint hearted. This is where I discovered you can actually pay a man to find you a parking space, park your car and wait for you to return. They will literally stop traffic so you can park or get out. I found these guys pretty awesome and friendly- I noted that everyone we asked for directions was more than happy to help...I can't help but think if I tried to ask a taxi driver driving beside us for directions in London that I wouldn't get the same response...But onto the museum. It's big. You could probably spend a good day itself doing it properly. The advice if you only have a few hours is to do the bottom floor, the mummies and tut's tomb. We didn't do the mummies...I'm a bit squemish and was more interested in the gold and jewellery on offer. We did tut's room though which wasn't that much different to the rest of the museum. The museum is situated in Tahir square which is where both of Egypt's most recent revolutions took place. It was fascinating and inspiring to stand where so many people had joined together and stood up for their rights. You wouldn't know it now mind with swish hotels lining the square and a garden being developed in the centre.

Our 3rd stop was en route back to the airport, grabbing some food in Nasr City, one of the more wealthier districts of Cairo (I'm not sure anywhere in central Cairo could be classed as 'wealthy' but so they say...) This was where we came accross the most ridiculous traffic chaos I've ever witnessed. How women and children can board and get off a moving bus in the middle of a highway is beyond me! We ate too much food and soon it was time to head back to Cairo International. Only to discover the rather incompetant Egyptair had rescheduled our flight at a later time and not told any of it's passengers. It almost ruined the day as we could have spent longer exploring Cairo's centre rather than propping up the bar for 3 hours in the domestic terminal.  I had a twitter war with them and filed a formal complaint and of course, have thus far, had not even a sniff of an apology.

Cairo to be summed up was actually better than I expected. It's a modern, vibrant and at times, pretty Middle Eastern city. Yes it's pretty dirty and has it's very poor parts, but the people and the history make you forget all of that.

In Egypt there are plenty of domestic flights from the main resorts, from elsewrhere Egyptair fly direct from London Heathrow and Singapore and Turkish Airlines run regular services.