Winston Churchill once said the Mediterranean coast west of Alexandria had "the best climate in the world". Jenny Jobbins checks out what else makes it so special Click to view caption Occasional sultry spells notwithstanding, Churchill's assessment seems pretty close to the mark -- and many Egyptians appear to agree. The southern resorts of Mersa Alam, Ain Sukhna and Na'ama Bay might be a tad more fashionable, but while people in the swing are dancing their feet off and doing everything they can to pretend they aren't melting, those with less desire to appear on the rage page are swarming in ever-increasing numbers to the North Coast. What more do you want, afficiondos ask? Soft white beaches so long they extend ad infinitum like a beachy universe. A sea you can really swim in (if you're brave). Water and sky in extraordinary blues. Figs and date palms, bougainvillea and hibiscus, lush green hedges and freshly-mown lawns -- to paraphrase Cole Porter, "anything grows". And, above all, there's not a wind but a breeze. For many, taking a chalet here means owning a little slice of heaven. You don't have to buy it -- you can rent it for the season, a month, a week or even a day. You can take a pick from any of the village resorts from Agami to Sallum -- beach and weather conditions change little, but other considerations might affect your choice. These include how far you want to drive and how much you want to spend. However, there is another major consideration, especially for those with children. While the beaches all along the coast are sandy and white, sea conditions vary. Though serenely and uniformly blue, the sea is sometimes rough and treacherous. It used to be said that if your sailboat missed the landing at Hannoville, the current would carry you to Mersa Matrouh, and if you missed that you would end up in the Straits of Gibraltar. This, of course, will hardly deter the sun-worshippers who go in for a quick paddle -- although one can't be fooled even by this. I had clearly neglected to make my propitiation to the sea gods when I carelessly ventured in near Borg Al-Arab only a week or two ago; standing ankle deep in the powder-soft sand I was suddenly swept off my feet by a strong wave. I scrambled up to test that I was still wearing my contact lenses -- I had been completely submerged as I rolled over --to find that yes, I was, only I wasn't wearing my Serengetis. After a second's frozen panic I bent with little hope to grope around my feet, and by a miracle the sunglasses were right underneath them. It was amazing that they hadn't been swept out to sea in the drag, a treasured offering to the Nereids. I took them to safety before the next wave came. "That's Borg Al-Arab for you," one of my colleagues said back in the office, going on to tell me why she had chosen to buy a chalet at Sidi Abdel-Rahman. "The sea's much calmer at Sidi Abdel- Rahman because the hotel forms a breakwater, and the fact that it's a bay means it's always safe to swim and safe for the children." The hotel is the Al-Alamein Hotel, long a favourite for Cairenes even though it takes an hour longer to drive there from Borg Al-Arab. Many people are so used to the drive they hardly notice it; old habits die hard, and indeed only 10 years ago one could hardly visit any of the beaches between Hannnoville and Sidi Abdel-Rahman which at that time were not only largely inaccessible from the Alexandria-Marsa Matrouh Road but subject to coast patrols and curfews. It was not uncommon then to see camel-police patrols, and one had to seek permission to swim. The coast has opened up now, but only after a fashion. This time it is to the private owners, not the police, that one must apply for permission. Fees for day passes vary from beach to beach, but they usually include lunch and can be obtained from the Borg Al-Arab Hilton, the Atic Hotel, the Al-Alamein Hotel and from many of the villages. Renting a chalet or apartment, of course, provides much more privacy than a hotel and at a fraction of the cost. Double rooms at the Borg Al-Arab Hilton start at $80 but a nearby chalet can start at LE150 a night or LE3,000 a month, and this is for six or eight people. Although the number of units on the stretch of coast between Alexandria and the Libyan border run into tens of thousands, almost all were snapped up even before the concrete had set. The reason? Speculators had a sharp eye on investment, and in most cases this paid off. Units which cost well under LE20,000 when first built now sell for many times that price. They have grown more attractive, too: lawns have prospered, trees have grown and units have been customised to replace the "little boxes" look. Each of the villages has a character: one may look like a Butlin's holiday camp, the next like a corner of New England suburbia and the one down the road like part of Bournemouth. Marina is said to resemble Mohandessin on a busy day. Owners in these villages have made homes-from-homes for themselves here and come regularly for weekends, if not the whole months of July and August (many husbands commute, leaving their families here). Sadly, many of the "investments" sit empty, accumulating money but not much else, their concrete façades peeling in the salty wind and their unloved and unopened shutters flaking badly in the sun. But fewer and fewer units are unused. Some villages now make arrangements with travel agents and accept tour groups. If you want to make your own arrangements the best way to rent a unit is to enquire at the reception gate or ask friends if the villages they frequent have any available. The office numbers for the villages are listed in the telephone book. Some rentals are for a minimum of two weeks, but if you want a shorter stay it's worth asking anyway because it is in the nature of holiday landladies to dither. Enquire, too, whether the unit has plates and pans, a working fridge, pillows etc., but expect to take your own sheets and towels. All the villages have a supermarket which sells basic necessities, including film, and some have a pharmacy or a post office. As for swimming pools and restaurant facilities, these vary from village to village but if you are travelling by car you won't find it far to drive to the next pizza parlour or fish restaurant. So many people take to the North Coast nowadays that life can be a social whirl -- a swim at one village at four, ice cream at another at five, a barbeque somewhere else later on. Cairenes whizzing back and forth along the coast road find this amazing -- no traffic jams, no donkey carts and no crush. And what else is there to do, apart from visiting friends and -- if you have time in between -- lolling on the beach? Well, there are the ruins at Taposiris Magna and Leucapsis (Marina), the monastery and ruins at Abu Mina, the World War II Museum and war graves at Al-Alamein, the famous beaches at Marsa Matrouh -- but by the time you have recovered from the night before, had a late breakfast and watered your garden, who has the time for any of those things? One eats late on the coast, when everything else has been done and at last one finds a free moment to sit on the terrace and mull over the moments of the day, planning the next. But while the days may pass in a similar fashion, the nights never behave in a predictable way: there night be a moon, or not. It may be where it was last night, or not. There may be mosquitoes, or a breeze, or not. One eats dinner with a heightened sense of anticipation: the night is not over until the fat lady sings, or in this case the moon appears. Last week as we waited for the full moon a huge black cloud hovered overhead against a dark indigo sky. Where did it come from? Was it humidity? Or was it from the Borg Al-Arab cement factory? "If the moon appears behind this cloud," I thought, "it will be pretty Gothic." And it was. As it slid from under the cloud, giving it a silver lining, it was a magic moon, Gothic indeed. A few hundred yards away the sea, never out of earshot, roared. The moon and the sea: they saw the Greeks and the Romans come and go. Now it's our turn for that little slice of heaven. Practical information Al-Alamein Hotel, Sidi Abdel-Rahman. Tel: (046) 4680140, (046) 4680112, (046) 4680196. Double room approx. $105.00, enquiries welcome. Atic Hotel, Alexandria-Marsa Matrouh Road, km 90, Alamein, Tel: (03) 950717, (03) 4106183. Double room approx. $90. Hilton Borg Al-Arab, Alexandria-Marsa Matrouh Road km. 52. Tel: (03) 990730/40/45/50. Double room from $80. www.hilton.com Links: http://www.africaguide.com/country/egypt/info.htm http://www.mesafreen.com/index.htm http://www.hotelstravel.com/egypt.html http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/alexandria/tourist/index.html Transport: West Delta buses run to resorts on the north coast from Almaza, Turguman and Giza in Cairo and from Alexandria. Tel: 5765582. Microbuses also run from Alexandria.
