RELAXING AT THE RED SEA RIVIERA by Michael O'Flaherty There's a taste of paradise waiting to be discovered by the Red Sea Riviera. I was relaxing by the Red Sea reading a book when a man came up and asked me if I wanted my glasses cleaned. The book I was immersed in was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami and I thought immediately that this was a wind-up of another kind.
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| Four Seasons Resort, Sharm el Sheikh |
I looked down at my glass of fresh mango juice. Did he mean he wanted to refresh my drink? No sir, he said, your glasses - your spectacles. Well, I have stayed at some half-decent places in my life, with impeccable service, but this was truly something else. Beyond normal duty, I would say. I handed over my glasses and lay back in the sun while the beach attendant poured solvent on them and polished them until they were gleaming and new. Then I pondered the meaning of service beyond service. And courtesy without obsequiousness, which is sometimes a difficult division. You can, of course, recognise paradise without the aid of spectacles. I had found it by the Red Sea Riviera at the new 136-room Four Seasons Resort, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
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