Egypt

Travel: Aswan

ANBA (Randa Achmawi)

The city of Aswan, on the banks of the Nile, 843 kilometres south of Cairo, is renowned as one of the most beautiful sites in Egypt. The cool climate in winter, from December to February, attracts a crowd of European tourists. Aswan is a favourite refuge of international celebrities, like former French president Jacques Chirac. "For many years they regularly spent their Christmas and New Year vacations here, in this city, and hotel," explain the employees of the legendary Old Cataract, a monumental palace hotel built in 1899, on a hill, with a view to the Nile and to Elephantine Island.

Aswan is the administrative seat of the province that goes by the same name. It is also in the city in which the famous novel "Death on the Nile", by Agatha Christie, written in the early 20th century, takes place. According to stories told by the hotel employees, the British writer, of aristocratic origin, spent several winters there and spent her days sitting on a balcony, writing. This is why many of the travellers who visit the site, since the publication of the book, carry it with them to identify in it excerpts that translate the atmosphere that reigns there.

- Travel: Cruising The Royal Route Of The Pharaohs
Ottawa Citizen (Mark Angelo) As our plane approached the town of Aswan in southern Egypt, I could see the meandering Nile below. Beyond the line of the river and the green ribbon of lush irrigated lands that paralleled it, there was nothing but the vast...

- Travel: Nile Cruise
Vancouver Sun (Mark Angelo) As our plane approached the town of Aswan in southern Egypt, I could see the meandering Nile below. Beyond the line of the river and the green ribbon of lush irrigated lands that paralleled it, there was nothing but the vast...

- Some Drowned, Some Buried
Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref) On several occasions Zahi Hawass has announced that underwater investigations were planned for the Nile Valley. In this article Nevine El-Aref describes the recovery of artefacts from the riverbed at Aswan. It is surely...

- Travel: Falling For Egypt
Guardian Unlimited - four page version Guardian Unlimited Print version (Lynn Barber) After Cairo, which is hard work with all the fumes and traffic jams, Luxor and Aswan are pure pleasure. Aswan in the far south is where Egypt suddenly feels like Africa...

- Travel: Giza To Aswan
http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1897942006A better than usual travel piece about visiting Egypt and what to expect at different sites, from a writer who took the time in advance to read up about the sites he was to visit. He considers in brief...

Egypt