You like Culture Sharm is a place where culture went out of the window when the big travel firms and hotel groups found it and so did the peace and quiet

Try other places along the Red Sea but most of these are built so a majority of holidaymakers can get Sunshine 365 and dive in huge groups into beautiful seas

Now don't get me wrong I like Sharm
but for culture no you'd get more in Blackpool


some others are going to be cross with me there is some culture like St Catherines but thats a very early morning bus ride away or you can go on a 2 day jaunt to the Pyramids but you've been there

I mean if You geocache there is one there I know That was my first one I found

I see you've "done" Luxor.... Not quite sure how long you were there for but we've been going on a regular basis since 1992 and only on our last visit did we actually take a short Nile cruise of 3 nights. Even now, we still haven't truly "done" Luxor

What we have done though is base ourselves in Luxor for 2 weeks then visited other places from there... Over the years we've travelled between Luxor to Cairo and back by overnight train (seated and sleeping carriage), taken an early morning trip to Hurghada for snorkelling off Gifton Island with an overnight stay in a hotel and travelled back late the next evening, taken the day cruise to Dendera temple, camel caravan along the west bank, organised all our own trips from Luxor with local drivers to Edfu, Medinet Habu and more. We still haven't been to Howard Carters' house (hopefully, we may manage that this coming September) and have nowhere near covered any of the tombs in the Queens Valley area....

What we really enjoyed was a twin centre holiday we took a number of years ago with a week in Luxor and week at the Isis Island in Aswan. Aswan is the real place to relax, it's smaller than Luxor but the shopping is still great. Again, we organised all our own excursions - taking a road trip to Abu Simbel and successfully managing to get a broken fan belt on our minibus on the way there, a flat tyre and a broken prop-shaft on the way back before finally leaving our "dead" minibus along with driver & co-pilot before piling in with a real mixed bunch of back-packers (and approx 14 of us) into another minibus on the way back! Hey, and we still made it back in time for lunch

Our last visit was 4 nights in Aswan followed by a 3 night cruise to Luxor, 2 nights Luxor then overnight train to Cairo for our last few hours before flying back to Cyprus.

We're back to Luxor again this year to try to catch up on all the things we've not succeeded in doing so far.

We've also spent a day in Alexandria by train from Cairo and that's planned for a future visit once we've managed to get some of our Egypt "virgins" from this years trip to fall in love with our most favourite destination. I hesitate to say "holiday" destination as we feel it's not so much as a holiday but an Experience.

Although we enjoyed our visit to the Red Sea - it isn't somewhere I would want to go back to as a main choice of holiday. It was great to swim in the sea after having a week in Luxor but we found there was no soul and it just felt like a man made resort.

I couldn't have 2 weeks on the Red Sea and feel like I had truly been to Egypt. I'm sure you can appreciate my comments if you've already experienced Luxor.... I would recommend a twin centre, if you can find an operator that's doing it. Otherwise, look at booking return charter flights into just one airport and then working the rest of your holiday around it. We've just booked scheduled flights with Egyptair (from Cyprus) to Cairo, then onwards to Luxor and return at a cost of 234 Euro per person. Internal flights are very simple to book and are relatively cheap.

We've also managed to pick up rooms at the Sofitel Winter Palace Pavillion hotel in Luxor with Travel Republic at less than 180 Gbp per couple on B&B. Our total cost comes to a little less than 340 Euro per person.

There are some great accommodation only deals around just now on TR, Sunshine.co.uk and Thomson websites - so, the world is your lobster......

CwB

Hi, I totally agree about Luxor. it is an experience not a holiday as such. it was the most amazing history trip i have ever been on. We visited the valley of the kings, Queens and nobles. we flew in a hot air balloon over the valley of the kings (incredible), took a boat up and down the nile. Flew up to Cairo to see the egyptian Museum, the Sphinx and the pyramids. We visited Hatchepsut temple, we went to the Luxor Museum and temple. We took a caleche around Luxor and had an egyptian night at the Jolie Ville. we also went camel treking which was funny!! this was all packed into one week, but couldn't fault it. Jazz