The Auberge du Lac Hotel, Fayoum Oasis

By Jimmy Dunn and Diaa Khalil

With appreciation to South Sinai Travel for some of the pictures.

The Fayoum Oasis is often advertised as a quieter, more relaxed, less crowded destination in Egypt, but it is not really an oasis at all. Rather the water from the Nile is diverted there, as it has been for many centuries, to create a rich agricultural area. But surprisingly, the Fayoum will not be found n many tour itineraries, despite its rich pharaonic and Greco-Roman heritage and attractions. While well known in Egypt, and to Egyptian enthusiasts, casual tourists to Egypt probably hardly know of its existence.

Like the Fayoum itself, we were surprised when we sent our roaming reporter, Diaa "Eye Candy" Khalil, out to find the famous Auberge du Lac Hotel, and no one seemed to be able to direct him to its location. While it is, hands down, the best hotel in the area, it is nowhere to be found on the Internet, and few guide books to Egypt even mention it. Many that do, ignore its rich history.

The Auberge du Lac was built as a hunting lodge by King Farouk, and in its hayday, having been converted to a hotel, has seen many famous personalities cross its threshold, mostly for hunting parties. But it also became a favored retreat for political figures, and so, history tells us that King Ibn Saud and Winston Churchill met at the hotel in 1945. Today, the hotel is a four star resort, with many amenities that can only be found at the Auberge du Lac while visiting the Fayoum area.

These include bars and a snooker lounge, four restaurants, a discotheque, tennis and squash courts, a fine health club with a Turkish bath, both loofa and dry oil massage, and not one, but two large swimming pools. It sits on Lake Karoun, said to be the oldest lake in the world, but truly the oldest man made lake, on which the hotel maintains its own port.

La Brasserie & Les Rois Restaurant

Rooms are comfortable, rather than luxurious, and include air conditioning, private baths, minibars, color TV with in house video, satellite connection and direct dial telephones. However, it is not a bad idea to take a look at the room one is supplied prior to moving in, as some appear to be better than others.

The hotel will also set up extensive tours of the Fayoum, both by land and boat, and if for some reason one is not inclined to seek out the many monuments in the area, the Fayoum is also well known as a bird reserve.

Looking out past the Pigeon House to Lake Karoun