Travel to Egypt - Top 3 Egyptian Tourist Attractions

So you have the trip planned. You are on your way to Egypt. Visions of pyramids, vast desserts and great kings fill your mind. The idea of a great adventure makes your heart race and the adrenaline pump through your body. There are so many places to see. Egyptian Antiquities Museum, Al-Qalaa Citadel, Coptic Museum, Museum of Islamic Arts, Gayer-Anderson Museum, Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Mosque at Al-Azhar, Abdeen Palace Museum, Abu Sir Pyramids, Manial Palace Museum, just to name a few. But do you know where you absolutely must go to say that you had a complete adventure while in Egypt. There are three places that if you miss, you might as well not have even been to Egypt.

The Giza Pyramids

First place is of course the pyramids. The Giza Pyramids were built as tombs for the great kings of Egypt, and sometimes the queens as well. The driving force behind the pyramids construction was the desire for eternity. These world famous monuments were not in isolation but they were constructed as a part of the funerary complexes which include temples and shrines.

Imhotep is not an Egyptian dance but the famous architect that built and designed the first pyramid. This pyramid can still be seen today in Egypt. They are known as the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the first monument in Egypt to be made entirely out of hewn stone.

Did you realize that there are two types of pyramids that not all pyramids were made the same? While most of us believe that the heads on some of the pyramids represent kings actually meant something different.

Valley of the Kings

Ramsees XI was the last king of the New Kingdom and his is also the last king to have built a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Most are sure though that he never used the tomb that he built.

What other secrets lay in wait for you here? Are there kings buried in the valley? Are the royal families buried there, as their final resting place before moving onto to eternity?

There are two main branches of the Valley of the Kings. There is the East Valley where most of the tombs are located. There is also the West Valley and here you will find only a few tombs and some pits.

Abu Simbel Temples

As the story goes, back in 1813 a man named J. L. Burkhardt stumbled upon an amazing site and brought it to the attention of many Europeans. He came across the facade of two temples built to as a dedication to Ramesses II, and the other to his wife, Nefertari.

With these being such incredible finds, it led to many Victorian travelers to make the trek up the Nile and that at times they would get there to find the temples completely covered in sand. You can still see these amazing temples as they were hundreds of years ago, but not where they were built originally. What do I mean by that?

As you can see there are tourist attractions galore for any visitor to Egypt, but there are only three that you absolutely must see in order for your trip to be considered complete. These three sites give you the adventure that you have been dreaming about for your trip.