Saqqara

It is the better of the two on a second day, and for some travellers on a first. Giza is three finished pyramids at maximum scale; Saqqara is where the idea was being invented, a hundred and fifty years earlier, in a complex full of stone imitations of reed and timber because nobody yet knew what a stone building should look like. It also has the mastaba reliefs, which show ordinary life in a detail no royal monument bothers with, and a fraction of the crowds and the commercial pressure.

Two hours covers the Djoser complex and two mastaba tombs properly; three includes the Serapeum, which needs its own walk. Add the drive — thirty kilometres from central Cairo, which is forty-five minutes or an hour and a half depending on traffic. Most people combine it with Dahshur and Memphis ten minutes further south, which makes a full day and is the standard second pyramid day out of Cairo.

An underground gallery cut for the burials of the Apis bulls, which were treated as living gods and mummified and interred with full ceremony. The corridor runs a long way underground with side chambers off it, each holding a granite sarcophagus weighing something like seventy tonnes — cut, transported and manoeuvred into place underground. It is cool, dramatic and unlike anything else at Saqqara. Access has opened and closed for conservation over the years, so confirm on the day.

Ti, Mereruka and Kagemni are the three most often open and the three worth prioritising, and their reliefs are the reason to come to Saqqara at all — boats being built, cattle forded past a waiting crocodile, geese counted, beer brewed, wrestling matches, butchery, all in sequence and much of it still coloured. Fifteen to twenty minutes each does them properly. Which are actually open changes for conservation, so ask at the ticket office and be ready to substitute.

Considerably, and it is one of the main reasons to go. The site is large, spread out and drives between its parts, so even when there are coaches at the Step Pyramid the mastabas and the Serapeum can be nearly empty. The commercial pressure — camel touts, guides, sellers — is a fraction of what it is at Giza, which changes the experience of the day more than most people expect.

Less so than Giza. There is deep sand across much of the site, steps down into every mastaba tomb, and the parts of the site are far enough apart to need a vehicle between them. The Serapeum is the exception — a ramped descent into a cool underground gallery, and the easiest interior on the site. Someone who cannot manage sand and steps can still see the Step Pyramid complex and the Heb-Sed court from level ground, which is a real visit.