Cairo now has two great museums and a day trip only has room for one.
For a century everything was in the salmon-pink building on Tahrir Square. That is no longer true, and a day trip from the coast realistically fits one museum, not two.

The old Egyptian Museum is crowded, under-labelled, and wonderful precisely because of it — cases jammed with objects, statues in corridors, an atmosphere closer to a Victorian collection than a modern gallery. It still holds an enormous amount, and it is fifteen minutes from Giza rather than next to it.
The Grand Egyptian Museum sits beside the pyramids and is the opposite in every way: vast, deliberate, superbly lit, with the complete Tutankhamun collection displayed together for the first time — more than five thousand objects, most of which were never on public view before.


For a first visit, the Grand Egyptian Museum is the better use of limited hours, and its position next to the plateau saves an hour of Cairo traffic.
For a first visit, the Grand Egyptian Museum is the better use of limited hours, and its position next to the plateau saves an hour of Cairo traffic. Come back for Tahrir when you have a proper two days in the city.

