We were excited about seeing the pyramids and decided to go there by ourselves, which was really easy.  We jumped on the metro, getting off at the Giza station.  From here we took a mini van (the one where the driver was calling out “Haram”) and were dropped off at the back entrance to the Pyramids. Although the ticket office here was not where the Lonely Planet map had put it (along with warnings that this was the only place to buy official tickets) we were able to buy official tickets here and enter in.  Our first stop was Khafre’s Valley Temple, which we wound our way through and ended up next to the incredible Sphinx.

 

 

After exploring here, we walked up to the Queen’s pyramids, a series of three smaller pyramids.  We were able to go down into one of the pyramids for free, and then climbed up on top of another to admire the Great Pyramid. We walked around the Great Pyramid but decided not to pay to go inside it as there is nothing left in there. 

 

 

 

 

 

We left the pyramids for lunch at the nearby Pizza Hut – we think it must have one of the best Pizza Hut views in the world!

 

 

After lunch we hiked back up and went down into the Pyramid of Khafre – it was an eery experience being in the middle of such a giant pyramid. 

 

 

 

 

We walked over to the third pyramid and up to a viewpoint before heading back to the entrance we had come in. 

 

 

 

 

We had been ignoring people all day who wanted to sell us things, so we ignored the person who told us that gate was closed – unfortunately that person happened to be telling the truth, so we joined a few locals in climbing over a six foot gate and jumping over rather than finding another exit.

We really liked being at the Pyramids by ourselves, as we had lots of time to explore. One of the things that we were prepared for but still found annoying were the relentless sellers – people offering camel rides, horse rides, souvenirs etc. We used a few different tactics which I will talk about in another post, but just be aware if you go to the Pyramids that there will be a lot of people trying to sell you things!  Overall the Pyramids were amazing.  One of the things we really noticed was how few tourists there were – being here in low season and the general lack of tourism since the revolution meant that the Pyramids felt close to empty of tourists. There also seemed to be more Egyptian tourists here than foreign tourists.  The lack of visitors led to some awesome experiences, like being alone inside two pyramids, but also probably contributed to the amount of sellers that approached us as with fewer tourists each person gets approached more.