Egypt: an edgy lesson in living history But Egyptians are resilient and enterprising, and over the next decade-and-a-half, in the course of several visits, I witnessed the resurgence of tourism as the lifeblood of Egypt's ailing, corrupt economy. The tourism sector is now a huge revenue earner, employing many millions and attracting correspondingly large numbers of visitors every year - 1.5 million from Britain alone in 2010 (we are the second most represented tourist nationality, behind Russia). But political uncertainties and unrest on the streets have scared people away in the past year and visitor numbers are down by as much as 30 per cent on pre-Revolution figures. Is the trepidation justified? That was what I had come to find out. A few steps north of Tahrir Square lies the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities (known as the Egyptian Museum), showcase and symbol of Egypt's astonishing past and vital cog in the country's smooth tourism machine. Before visiting it, Enass and I sat on a low wall in Tahrir Square sipping sweet shai (tea) bought from a street vendor and soaking up the atmosphere. There was a small demo taking place, with chanting and banner- waving. After pointing out the lookouts on the high building, Enass asked if I could feel the paranoia. "If you look behind you, you will see the eyes, everybody looking this way and that," she said. I swivelled round. She was right. Ten minutes later, from a distance of six inches, I was gazing into another set of pupils. They were unflinching, made of obsidian and belonged to the funerary mask of the boy pharaoh, Tutankhamen. The mask, of beaten gold inlaid with semi-precious stones, is one of the most beautiful and famous artefacts in the world and the highlight of the Egyptian Museum. Normally - as with, say, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre - you brave a scrum of people to see it. Today there were just a handful of tourists, most of them Egyptian, in the dimly lit room it shares with the most precious of the tomb objects. I had the luxury of having the mask almost to myself; I could gaze on it from all directions, without being elbowed in the kidneys, for several minutes. Owing to its proximity to Tahrir Square, the museum has been particularly affected by political events. The café is closed until further notice, as is the shop, its shelves emptied. The museum itself is subject to abrupt closure if anything "kicks off," in the current jargon of street disturbance. After we left it to sample more of the mood on the street, things did indeed kick off. Outside the TV Building, a little way north of the museum, a demo turned into a riot and there was gunfire. We took shelter in the lobby of an apartment building and there was no harm done. But if you prefer your history safely mummified and behind glass, it's best at present not to venture on to the streets around Tahrir Square. For most of Cairo, commerce is not to be interrupted by the trifling matter of revolution. In Khan el-Khalili bazaar, in the city's ancient Islamic quarter, it was business as it has been for 1,000 or more years for the silversmiths and goldsmiths and the charming extortionists touting their onyx and turquoise and knock-off watches. "Excuse me, how can I take your money?" inquired one chap affably, while another hissed: "Rolex? Rolex? You want Rolex? In and around Tahrir Square there are no khaki or blue uniforms to be seen - security has been ceded to youths with covered faces. But around Khan el-Khalili bazaar, at the Egyptian Museum and at all the archaeological sites, the black-uniformed tourist police in their Basque-like berets provide a heavy and reassuring presence. At the Giza pyramids, on the dot of eight next morning, they briefly threatened to outnumber tourists until a couple of coaches turned up to disgorge groups of Americans and Japanese. Nevertheless - and though the site wasn't remotely as empty as in the weeks following the Luxor Massacre - the crowds seemed well down. At the smallest pyramid, that of Menkaure, there were no tourists at all, just a handful of listless vendors. Only one approached me. British? Jolly good show!" he said, but soon left me alone. I had the Sphinx to myself - another rare privilege. It wasn't until I reached Memphis - an archaeological site about 18 miles south of Cairo - that I ran into any British tourists. Memphis, dating from 3200BC, is a strictly second-division attraction. It was built by the founder of the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt but the buildings were made of mud-brick and there is very little to see now bar a colossal statue of Ramses II. It turned out that Memphis was a consolation prize for the British package-holidaymakers. Their scheduled visit to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo had just been cancelled by their tour operator because of the trouble I had run into the day before. But British phlegm was very much in evidence. Roger Gaisford, of Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, said he had had no qualms about coming to Egypt, though he had heard that German and American tourists were being frightened off. "It's inbred in them, isn't it?" he added with a twinkle. Philip Dowle, of Lincoln, was fulfilling a lifelong ambition to see the sites of ancient Egypt. "Things are turbulent everywhere," he said. You have to make a measured guess. Would I have been safer in London last August? His wife, Claire, was impressed that the holiday company had acted promptly by cancelling the museum visit. "It shows that they're looking after you," she said. Several people seemed more concerned by the filthy, rubbish-strewn state of the canal their coach had followed down from Cairo ("Makes London look good," muttered a man from Dumbarton). Some 235 miles south-east of Cairo, across the Gulf of Suez, manicured gardens and boulevards of uplit palm trees set the tourist tone. This is the purpose-built resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, an Egyptian Las Vegas blasted and irrigated out of the rocky foreshore of the Red Sea. Each week through the winter it sucks in hundreds of charter-planeloads of mostly Russian and British tourists seeking sun, drink and top-class diving. It is not so much a resort as a series of contiguous tourist zones, stretching for 30 miles or so along the coast. Practically every inch is privatised and covered in shopping malls, all-inclusive resorts, upmarket hotels, casinos and so on. Police have plenty of boots on the street and there are frequent speed bumps and roadblocks along its main highway. The hated former president, Hosni Mubarak, has villas here and was taken to hospital in Sharm after being ousted from power last year. People breathed a sigh of relief when he was flown to Cairo to stand trial and they could get on with what they do best - tourism. This is the flip side of Egypt, a playground devoid of history or context, and - now that Mubarak is out of the way - nowhere in the country does the Arab Spring feel more distant and academic. But reality intrudes, even here. Two days before I arrived a French tourist was shot dead by a Bedouin at a bureau de change in Sharm. The authorities dismissed the incident as random and unrelated to the Revolution, but in the current febrile atmosphere all acts of violence have a political subtext - later in the week 74 people were killed at a football stadium in Port Said, triggering more violence, and more deaths, on Egypt's streets. In fact, Sharm has seen atrocity before. In July 2005, nearly 90 people, mostly Egyptians, were killed in a series of terrorist bomb attacks. My guide, Mohamed Mostafa, took me to the memorial, on a bluff overlooking the Red Sea. Egypt - as he didn't need to tell me, of all people - always comes back: "Afterwards, the Russians came, and tourism built up even bigger than before." Mohamed has added reason to be thankful for the Russian invasion - later this month he is marrying a girl from St Petersburg who came to Sharm on holiday. Sharm, he said, could be the greatest holiday resort in the world - if Egypt would only resolve its current troubles. The French tourist was shot dead in the old part of Sharm, the original area of the whole coastal development. In its old market police were patrolling with automatic weapons and a British tourist, her head wrapped in a keffiyeh, was taking a joyride on a camel. "What's happening here is not terrorism," said Mohamed Mostafa, gesturing around him. It's revolution. It's the best thing that's happened to Egypt. Nigel Richardson travelled as a guest of Western & Oriental (020 7666 1234; wandotravel.com). A five-night break, staying two nights in the Mena House Oberoi in Cairo and three in the Hyatt Regency in Sharm el-Sheikh, costs from £699 pp, including international and internal flights on Egyptair and private transfers. A one-day guided tour of Cairo, including the Egyptian Museum and the Giza pyramids, costs £110 for two people.