Accommodations and Food

Siwa can’t claim to offer a wide variety of accommodations, but you can find decent lodging. Most travelers prefer the new Cleopatra Hotel, south of the town square on the main road past the Shali fortress. Cleopatra has the most comfortable rooms within a radius of 290km. Mr. Muhammad Ahmed Khalid, who is fluent in English, awaits the daily bus from Marsa Matrouh, so as to escort disoriented visitors to his hotel. (Dorm beds LE5.60. Doubles with internal private bath LE18, with external private bath LE13. Breakfast LE392.) The government-run, three-story Hotel Arous al-Waha (Worth Bride Hotel), stands at the end of the road from Marsa Matrouh. Clean, simple rooms all have baths. If you find the rooms uncomfortably hot (very likely in the summer), you can drag your mattress out onto the gigantic, breezy terrace. (Singles LEI 5. Doubles LE20. Prices discounted 50% June-Sept.)

A bodacious budget bed at the Badawi Hotel, lkm south of the town center, across from the intelligence office, costs LE3. The hotel is managed by the owner’s energetic and competent 13-year-old son Badawi, with help from other siblings. Clean rooms, Turkish and Western toilets. Couples without proof of marriage must sleep separately. The Youssef Hotel, next door to the Al-Medina off the town square, has reasonably clean rooms and hot water (LE5 per bed). Those who hear the call of the date palms and pomegranate trees and feel more comfortable at sea-level should take a caretta to the Amun Hotel at Dakrur Mountain. (Doubles LE8.) And, for the piaster-pincher who spits in the face of hygiene, the large, decrepit Hotel Al-Medina and the cramped New Siwa Hotel, across from the military intelligence office, charge LE3 and LE2.50 for a dorm bed, respectively.