Sharm el-Sheikh

The sea is what Sharm el-Sheikh is for. The Red Sea is clear and calm, about 27°C in late summer and rarely below 21°C in winter, and the coral starts a few steps from shore. Naama Bay has the most conventional sandy bay, while Sharks Bay, Ras Um Sid and the Nabq coast to the north are lined with resort beaches where wooden jetties carry swimmers over the reef flat to the drop-off. Snorkelling straight from the beach is as good as almost anywhere.

The catch is that most beaches belong to hotels, many are small and partly man-made, and reef shoes are wise because of coral and sea urchins. Winter afternoons can be windy and cool for sunbathing, even when the water is still pleasant.

Most visitors eat in their hotel, and all-inclusive buffets set the tone. Outside the resorts, Naama Bay is lined with international restaurants built for tourists. The more rewarding food is in the Old Market, where simple places grill the day's fish, sell koshari, ful and taameya, and serve mint tea and shisha late into the evening. Bedouin-style dinners under the stars are a popular outing. There is no real café culture, alcohol is mostly confined to hotels and tourist bars, and few visitors would come for the food.

Sharm el-Sheikh is a modern resort with almost no historic fabric. The Old Market quarter has the Al Sahaba Mosque, a large Ottoman-styled landmark lit up at night, and the Heavenly Cathedral, a Coptic church with richly painted interiors, is worth a short visit. Beyond that there are no museums of note in town. Egypt's great heritage lies far away, so culture here is something you travel out for.

Naama Bay is where people go out, with a promenade of bars, shisha lounges and a few large clubs that run late, at their busiest in the European summer and around Christmas and Easter. Beach bars host DJ nights, and the Old Market area stays awake late with cafés rather than drinking. Many visitors never leave their all-inclusive hotel, where evenings mean the lobby bar and an entertainment programme. It is fun for a few nights of dancing, but the scene is narrow, mostly aimed at tourists, and quiet outside the peak months.

Underwater, this is one of the great places on earth. Ras Mohammed National Park, at the southern tip of Sinai about 30km away, has sheer reef walls, huge schools of fish and the wreck of the Thistlegorm nearby, while the reefs of the Tiran Strait and Nabq protected area are a short boat ride from town. Diving, liveaboards, snorkelling trips, kiteboarding and glass-bottom boats are the core of an active stay.

On land, the red granite mountains and desert of South Sinai give quad-bike and jeep trips, camel rides and starlit evenings at Bedouin camps, and Nabq has mangroves and coastal dunes. The peaks around Mount Sinai make a long excursion. Summer heat confines land activity to early morning and evening, and there is very little green.

The choice is short. Dahab, a laid-back former Bedouin village on the Gulf of Aqaba about an hour north by road, makes a relaxed day out. The big excursion is St Catherine's Monastery, one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world, at the foot of Mount Sinai about three hours away; many visitors combine it with an overnight climb of the mountain for sunrise. Long organised trips to Cairo, Luxor or Petra are sold, but they mean very early starts and long hours in transit.

Sharm works well for a classic resort week with children. Large hotels have kids' clubs, family pools and often their own water slides, and the calm, shallow lagoons are good for first snorkelling lessons, with glass-bottom boats for those who prefer to stay dry. Beyond the hotels there is little made specifically for children apart from shows and a few amusement attractions, so the hotel choice matters more than the town. Midsummer heat is intense for small children, the reef flats call for water shoes, and getting anywhere means taxis.

Sharm stretches for around 30km along the coast, from the Old Market and Hadaba in the south to the Nabq hotels in the north, and only Naama Bay is pleasant on foot. Public transport is limited to shared minibuses on the main road. Most visitors use hotel shuttles or taxis, agreeing the fare before getting in, and book excursions as tours with pick-up. Many simply stay put in their resort, which suits the place.

Shopping is mostly souvenirs. The Old Market and the Naama Bay promenade sell spices, perfume oils, papyrus, alabaster, cotton galabiyas, shisha pipes and Bedouin-style jewellery, and haggling is expected, with persistent sales patter to match. A few modern shopping centres stock beachwear and familiar brands. It is good for a handful of gifts, but there is no fashion, design or craft scene to seek out.

By European resort standards Sharm is inexpensive, especially for all-inclusive hotels, which often cost less than a basic room in a Mediterranean resort. Local food in the Old Market is cheap. Prices outside the hotels are set for tourists, though: taxis must be negotiated, restaurants in Naama Bay charge close to European rates, and imported alcohol, diving and excursions add up. Visitors who stay inside an all-inclusive and go out little get the best value.

Performance here means hotel entertainment teams, belly dancing and whirling tanoura dancers at dinner shows, and large evening spectacles staged for package tourists. There is no theatre, concert hall or local music scene to speak of.

There is no bathing tradition of its own, but the large resorts almost all have spas, many with an Oriental bath, steam rooms and scrub-and-foam treatments in the hammam style, along with massage at fair prices. The rhythm of a stay is the real restorative element: warm winter sunshine, long days by the pool and the sea, and very little to rush for. It suits someone who wants to switch off in a hotel rather than seek out a historic bath house.