Review of Winter Palace Luxor, by Nicholas Mellor

The oldest and most luxurious hotel in Luxor? Well, certainly the oldest. Set back from the river behind the busy road that runs along the side of the river, a Nile view includes the traffic, roadlights and the shopping arcade at the front of the hotel, together with the vast, squat cruisers that offer packaged tours up and down the Nile. Beyond that is the palm fringed river and the mysterious hills often hidden in mirage of heat, in which are hidden the Valley of the Kings. Most of Luxor's hotels suffer from the same problem of a sublime view destroyed by the road and docking tourist boats.

Walk up the steps and into the great entrance hall and it is immediately clear that The Winter Palace is no match for its twin, the Old Cataracts Hotel in Luxor. Vast, impersonal and with a dusty Victorian atmosphere, this is not one of those 'grand dames' of hotels that you will remember for the rest of your life. An odd assortment of artefacts adorns the hall - replica Victorian portraits, the omnipresent David Robert's prints, a couple of pot plants stand limply by a pillar. Magnificent stairs sweep up to the first floor creating great expectations about the bedrooms beyond it. In contrast to the spaciousness of the corridors, the rooms are poky and the bathrooms of even the 'de lux' Nile view rooms, more like a cubby hole.

Lying on your bed with a TV the most prominently placed at the foot of the bed and the view from the windows obscured by the voluptuous net curtains, you could be anywhere in the world. Some people may feel at home at the Winter Palace.