Egypten

Egyptens nya tåglinje kommer göra det möjligt att ta snabbtåget mellan Medelhavet och Röda havet. Det blir även Egyptens första linje för snabbtåg – ett välkommet inslag för den som enklare vill kunna ta sig fram genom landet utan flyg.

El Gouna is a self-contained holiday town and probably the best-run resort in Egypt. The brainchild of Egyptian billionaire Onsi Sawiris, it is built around lagoons and waterways, ensuring there are plenty of beaches and that many places have views of the water. El Gouna is frequented by Egypt's chi-chi set and Europeans on package tours. Boasting 16 hotels, an 18-hole golf course, plenty of villas, and boutique shopping, restaurants and bars galore, it's about as far removed from Egypt's usual hustle and bustle as you can get. The only local experience you are likely to have is smoking shisha (albeit on a marina terrace overlooking some mighty swanky yachts). But if you're after a place to laze on a beach and do some diving, then you'll definitely enjoy your time here.

The Nile south of Luxor is increasingly hemmed in by the Eastern Desert, its banks lined with grand, well-preserved Graeco-Roman temples at Esna, Edfu and Kom Ombo, and its lush fields punctuated by palm-backed villages – it’s the ideal place to sail through on a Nile boat. The once-great city of Al Kab provides the perfect contrast to the grandeur of the temples, while at Gebel Silsila the river passes through a gorge sacred to the ancients, who used stone from the quarry to built the temples in Luxor. Aswan, the ancient ivory-trading post, has a laid-back atmosphere and plenty of things to see.

Low-key, laid-back and low-rise, Dahab is the Middle East’s prime beach resort for independent travellers.

Egypt’s northern coastline runs for 500km along Mediterranean shores. Its sandy beaches and turquoise-hued sea lure floods of Egyptians here during summer and, in recent years, a number of sprawling resorts have been built facing these crystal waters. Most travellers, however, make a beeline straight to the once-great port city of Alexandria. Eulogised through the centuries, this faded old dame of a metropolis is still by far Egypt's most atmospheric city. Alexandria's fresh sea air, fantastic seafood, ancient history and crumbling gems of belle époque buildings give it a spirit distinctly different from that of Cairo.

In its late-19th-century raffish heyday, Port Said was Egypt’s city of vice and sin. The boozing seafarers and packed brothels may have long since been scrubbed away, but this louche period is evoked still in the waterfront’s muddle of once-grand architecture slowly going to seed.

Luxor is often called the world’s greatest open-air museum, but that comes nowhere near describing this extraordinary place. Nothing in the world compares to the scale and grandeur of the monuments that have survived from ancient Thebes.

If you want to dig a little deeper into Egyptian culture and history, the area surrounding the capital is home to several intriguing and important sites rarely included on typical Egypt itineraries. Although few can honestly be put in the 'must-see' category – except of course for the majestic ancient site of Saqqara, which lies on the city’s southern edge – those with time up their sleeve will enjoy delving into this lesser-seen region.

Plucked from obscurity during the early days of the Red Sea’s tourism drive, the fishing village of Hurghada has long since morphed into today’s dense band of concrete that marches along the coastline for more than 20km. Still, it's a convenient destination for combining a diving holiday with the Nile Valley sites. Further offshore there is still superb diving aplenty; local NGOs are helping the town clean up its act, and the southern resort area and Sigala's sparklingly modern marina have brought back some of Hurghada's sheen.

For a brief period following the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979, a thriving Israeli tourism trade meant Tarabin (Nuweiba's waterfront beach-camp area) could claim rivalry to Dahab as Sinai’s hippy beach paradise. However, the vagaries of the regional politics over recent decades have meant Israeli travellers, for the most part, shun Sinai. So while Sharm boomed and Dahab grew steadily into a low-key resort, Nuweiba which stretches over 15km, was left to function primarily as a port for the Aqaba-bound ferry to Jordan. It's a shame because it could easily be the mellow beach-camp paradise that Dahab was a decade ago.