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| Mount Sinai and the Sinai Desert in the morning |
The proud motto is 'Every celebrity is a guest and every guest is a celebrity'.
After a day's activities, or non-activities as the case may be, it is time for dinner, a gourmet affair at one of three international restaurants.
Sharm is a five hour flight from London. Welcome to the City of Peace, say the signs on the road from the airport, despite the bombs of July 2005 which killed 64 people.
With security enhanced, tourists are starting to return and last autumn there was nearly 65% occupancy in hotels. And plans to build a vast security fence around the resort were scrapped after critics warned it was like constructing a concentration camp, which would deter holidaymakers.
Sharm is a year-round resort. Its 141 hotels, with 60,000 beds, account for 25% of Egypt's tourist economy, and the busiest time of year is August, when it is searingly hot.
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View from the lobby of the Four Seasons Resort Sharm el Sheikh |
But Sharm itself is not the only drawcard. Away from the town and the hotels, there is history and culture in abundance.
Drive out into the Sinai desert into a biblical landscape of endless sands - 24,000 square miles of waterless nothing - with just a few oases. In the background are dramatic red mountains.
Sinai is steeped in history. Before the time of Christ, it was one of the world's most important crossroads as the gateway from Africa to Asia, the bridge between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and the direct route from Europe to the Indian Ocean and the Far East.
In some of the remaining Bedouin camps, warm hospitality abounds. Visitors can mingle and eat with the tribesmen and their snorting, belching camels. Some of the men have four wives, but others have abandoned the nomadic way of life for the towns and swapped their camels for Mercedes.
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