The Great Gallery Art Tour

Breakfast at your hotel before a pick up and off to our first venue for the day.

The Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo is acknowledged as the largest museum specialising in Islamic Art in the world.  Currently it houses over 100,000 artifacts covering all the different forms of Islamic Art from the various periods of Islamic history.

Its collection is comprehensive in quantity and quality of its coverage.  This has made it a beacon of Islamic art and civilization throughout its history. It also become the ‘go to’ organisation and library for researchers and historians.  It attracts visitors from all walks of life, who are interested in delving into the intricacies of Islamic sciences and disciplines such as medicine, engineering and astronomy.

Its collection includes metallic, glass and porcelain utensils, as well as jewellery, weapons, wood and ivory objects, textiles, carpets. The museum ​also has a large library that has a rich collection of specialized books and references covering a wide variety of topics like Islamic history, antiquities, art and architecture.

Adam Henein was renowned as a sculptor since the 1950s and rose to fame for the inspiration his art drew from ancient Egypt. He was awarded the Luxor Studio Scholarship for Distinguished Artists in the West Bank and Qurna in 1954 and 1955 and led the restoration of the Great Sphinx of Giza from 1989 to 1998.

After living in Paris, he returned to Egypt and started the International Sculpture Symposium in Aswan. He received many awards, including Egypt’s State Medal and the Mubarak Award. Henein’s art has been shown worldwide, from Alexandria to Rome, and displayed in world-class platforms like New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The main museum building consists of 3 floors, spread across the space of 700 meters, displaying an array of Adam’s work, featuring sculptures, drawings, paintings, prints, and even textiles. In addition to the main building, the museum’s garden is where Adam’s pieces blend in with nature. This open space is where the museum’s public audience get to sit down on the fresh grass and have a cup of coffee while having the chance to admire more of Adam’s artworks.

Since Adam himself oversaw and supervised the process of establishing and equipping the museum, you walk around the space knowing that the artist himself chose every tiny detail around the museum.

We would like to acknowledge the works of Adam Henein’s publicly available on You Tube.

We enjoy taking our guess out for lunch because it’s another way to experience Egyptian culture. We just want to make the following points. The restaurant that is part of this experience is the revolving restaurant atop the Hilton Hotel. This is one of the top restaurants in Cairo and a chance to not only take in the stunning view of Cairo, but as a great interlude to captivating day.

Near the pyramids at Giza, the centre was founded in the early 1950s by the late architect Ramses Wissa Wassef as a weaving school. It has since evolved to comprise workshops and showrooms, a pottery and sculpture museum, houses and farm buildings, constructed entirely of mud brick.

For Wissa Wassef, vaulted and domed mud brick structures represented something quintessentially Egyptian as these forms had been adopted in turn by Paranoiac, Coptic and Islamic civilisations. The choice of this traditional technology also reflected his desire to transmit the values of handicraft to succeeding generations in a rapidly industrialising country.

The Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center was the home of a unique experiment in tapestry weaving that has produced extraordinary works admired and collected by museums and galleries around the world.  And is ceramic creations was also a passion that drove him in his life.

Overnight – the second of 3 nights at the Cairo Marriott (Nile River) 5 Star Hotel. B L included – Dinner at Own Expense.

Breakfast at your hotel before a pick up and off to our first venue for the day.

Shawky gained international recognition for his works that trace the history of the Crusades through a Middle Eastern lens. Wael Shawky’s work tackles notions of national, religious and artistic identity through film, performance and storytelling. Shawky frames contemporary culture through the lens of historical tradition and vice versa. Mixing truth and fiction, childlike wonder and spiritual doctrine, Shawky has staged epic recreations of the medieval clashes between Muslims and Christians in his trilogy of puppets and marionettes In 2024, Shawky was selected to represent Egypt at the 60th Venice Biennale.

We would like to acknowledge Wael Shawky’s public availability of his work on You Tube.

We undertake a gallery tour of Zamalek, a district known for its vibrant cultural scene and art venues. The tour includes visits to:

1. Picasso Al Zamalek,
2. Ubuntu Art Gallery and;
3. Misr Art Gallery.

You can explore a range of contemporary and traditional artworks at each location.

Khan El Khalili is the oldest bazaar in Egypt and has been operating 24 hours a day for 600 years.

El-Fishawy café hosted many renowned figures like the French Military leader Napoléon Bonaparte, the famous German leader Rommel, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir in addition to Arab princes and Empress Eugenie who visited Egypt during Suez Canal inauguration in 1869. The Café also hosted former president Gamal Abdul Nasser.

So, you will be in a cafe which many famous (and infamous) people frequented. El-Fishawy Café has unique antiques displayed all around the café like the African crocodile hanging on the café’s wall that was a gift from Sudanese Prime Minister and the glass curtains made of gemstones.

As in all Egypt, you are surrounded by history and the legacies that are part of all our lives

After lunch its your free time to explore the bazaar.

The market dates to the 14th century when Emir Dajaharks Al-Khalili built a large market complex on the site of the Za’afran Tomb, which had been the burial place of the Fatimid rulers of Egypt. It was a massive necropolis for the Fatimid princes and sultans who once ruled Egypt.

The Khan El-Khalili Bazaar is a bustling, vibrant market that has been operating 24 hours a day for over 600 years. For travellers to Cairo, it’s a must-see for visitors who want to experience the heartbeat of Egypt. Located in the heart of Islamic Cairo, the bazaar is lined with shops, restaurants and cafes selling everything from spices to jewellery to souvenirs. In late afternoon we will return to your hotel.

Evening Nile Cruise & Dinner

Enjoy your last night with a dinner cruise which features traditional belly dancing and  singers.  You are picked up and returned to the hotel at the end of the evening.

Overnight – the third of 3 nights at the Cairo Marriott (Nile River) 5 Star Hotel.

Breakfast: Enjoy breakfast prior to your departure.

Checkout times can be arranged with the hotel and depending on your departure time  you have the options of additional tour.  Please consult One Horizon for your options

Transfers  You will transfer to Cairo International Airport for your ongoing journey at prearranged time and also facilitate your movement through Immigration

End of Tour