Giza is the western half of greater Cairo — a teeming city in its own right of over eight million people, sprawling up to the desert edge where the Great Pyramids stand on their plateau. The pyramids are what everyone comes for, and they deserve it: these are the last surviving Wonder of the ancient world, the Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) alone containing more than two million limestone blocks and older than almost anything else still standing on earth. The Great Sphinx crouches just below, weather-eaten and half the height of its pyramid, staring east toward the Nile.
The Giza Plateau is both overwhelming and frustrating. The monuments are genuinely awe-inspiring, but the edge of the city now laps right up to them and the area is a circus of touts, camel handlers, and persistent "guides". Arrive early — ideally at opening, around 8 am — buy your ticket, hire a guide or firmly decline all offers, and walk the complex in the cool of the morning. Beyond the three famous pyramids, the Solar Boat Museum and the Valley Temple of Khafre are essential additions. The new Grand Egyptian Museum, opened nearby, collects the best of the pharaonic artefacts previously scattered across Cairo, and makes a natural half-day companion to the pyramids.
Beyond the plateau, Giza is also a city with its own character: the university district around Cairo University is where genuine Egyptian daily life happens at its most vivid, and the Nile corniche offers felucca rides and fish restaurants far from the tourist circuit. The Taha Hussein Museum and the extraordinary Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum — Impressionist paintings in a Nile-side villa — are two of the city's less-visited but genuinely worthwhile stops.
The older pyramid fields at Saqqara (the stepped pyramid of Djoser, oldest of them all) and Dahshur (the Red and Bent pyramids) make for a quieter and in some ways more rewarding day trip than the main site. They are 30 and 40 km south of Cairo respectively and best combined into one trip.