Having spent the first day of my visit to the Pyramids of Giza getting a feel for the place, and venturing inside the Pyramids of Khufu and Khafre, I returned the following day ready for some wider exploration.

I had bought a ticket to enter the Great Pyramid, so climbed the stairs over the massive limestone blocks to the entrance. Not only was I visiting the Pyramids, I was about to enter the biggest of them all!

Looking into the eyes of the death mask, I felt like I was staring back in time through thousands of years. I was looking not just at the mask but at the young man himself.

After walking from my Cairo apartment and along the Nile I was back at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities for another look around. Today it was time to climb the stairs onto the first floor, where the Museum’s vast collection of coffins and mummies was stored.

Inside the museum foyer, the floor and walls were covered in dark granite sarcophagi, exquisitely shaped and polished, and engraved with minutely detailed hieroglyphics. I started grinning and giggling like and idiot; this was the stuff of boyhood dreams!