Seven days off the standard route: the Pyramids of Giza, then Siwa, with a 4x4 trip into the Great Sand Sea, sandboarding and the Oracle Temple of Amun.
A representative welcomes you at Cairo International Airport, assists with the formalities and transfers you to your hotel in a private air-conditioned vehicle.
A 4:00 AM pickup for the 10-hour drive west to Siwa. It is a long day, but the landscape does the work — cultivation gives way to open desert and eventually to the oasis itself. Brunch on arrival, then a first look at Old Siwa and the mudbrick fortress town of Shali.
A traditional breakfast, then the Mountain of the Dead with its rock-cut tombs, and the Oracle Temple of Amun — the reason Alexander the Great made the same journey you did yesterday, though rather more slowly. The afternoon is the 4x4 safari into the dunes, with sandboarding and a Bedouin dinner as the light goes.
The return drive after breakfast, arriving in Cairo to check in and an evening at your own pace.
A morning through the city's historic heart: the Salah El Din Citadel and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali, with its wide views over the rooftops, then down into Coptic Cairo, where churches like the Hanging Church and Abu Serga carry Egypt's Christian history. The day finishes among the stalls of Khan El Khalili.
A final Egyptian breakfast, then check out and transfer to Cairo International Airport for your flight home.