Travel: Aswan

ANBA (Randa Achmawi)

The city of Aswan, on the banks of the Nile, 843 kilometres south of Cairo, is renowned as one of the most beautiful sites in Egypt. The cool climate in winter, from December to February, attracts a crowd of European tourists. Aswan is a favourite refuge of international celebrities, like former French president Jacques Chirac. "For many years they regularly spent their Christmas and New Year vacations here, in this city, and hotel," explain the employees of the legendary Old Cataract, a monumental palace hotel built in 1899, on a hill, with a view to the Nile and to Elephantine Island.

Aswan is the administrative seat of the province that goes by the same name. It is also in the city in which the famous novel "Death on the Nile", by Agatha Christie, written in the early 20th century, takes place. According to stories told by the hotel employees, the British writer, of aristocratic origin, spent several winters there and spent her days sitting on a balcony, writing. This is why many of the travellers who visit the site, since the publication of the book, carry it with them to identify in it excerpts that translate the atmosphere that reigns there.