The Old Cataract Hotel by Nicholas Mellor

Beware of hotels that trade on their lists of celebrity visitors, especially those that reached their peak of popularity a century again. You may also be wary of grand hotels that have had a make-over by an international hotel group with standardised furnishing designed to make the international traveller feel at home in a familiar environment rather than abroad.

The Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan could easily fall in both traps, but it rises above them through its extraordinary location overlooking elephantine island and the Nile, with desert hills on the far bank, a sense of tradition and commitment to being the most luxurious place to stay in Aswan.

Surrounded by luxuriant gardens it is an oasis in the bustle of Aswan, normally packed with tourists and hawkers. Shaded windows, and high airy ceilings keep it cool and the air conditioning in the background.

Layers of verandahs, shaded with canvas awnings, secluded pagodas where one can enjoy tea or smoke a shisha, lead steeply down to the rocky banks of the Nile. When the Nile flooded, this tranquil spot would have been transformed into a foaming torrent. That all changed with one of the Old Cataract’s earliest guests - Sir John Aird. He came to Egypt to design and oversaw the construction of the first Aswan dam - a dam that was to transform both the landscape and agriculture of Egypt. The dam made the rapids - and the annual flooding a thing of the past. Only in the earliest photographs will you see the flooding Nile which enabled the Pharaohs to bring the stone on rafts to transport oblesiks from Aswan granite to Luxor, or stone for the pyramids to Giza.

One of the Old Cataract's broad and lofty corridors lead to a vast Moorish dining hall. There is a formality and timelessness about dining in this vast hall with the dishes named after the hotel’s more famous guests from Howard Carter who discover Tutankhamen’s tomb, to Antoine de St Exupery, and Sir Winston Churchill. King Farouk inspired a light filo pie with poached eggs, boletus mushrooms, pumpkin and marrow with sage butter. Sir John Aird inspired a fricassee of chicken breast with shrimps, bananas, balsamic rice and fried vegetables.

The rooms vary between the standard rooms, overlooking the gardens and the rooms overlooking the Nile, which come at a premium. Whereas the garden rooms are spacious and many have the older, more eclectic furniture, they tend to be dark and somewhat sparse. The Nile view rooms have been more recently refurnished with more standardised Sofitel furniture and bathrooms. The best rooms are those with balconies overlooking the Nile. Many have a garden table and chairs and a bed on which you can lie and experience Aswan, its desert sunsets, feluccas gliding across the river, and the scented garden. You can experience most of Aswan’s highlights without ever leaving your balcony.

For more than four decades, Agatha Christie was a frequent visitor in Egypt. Accompanied by her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan, on his excavations, they often stayed at the Old Cataract. It is difficult to imagine Agatha Christie being drawn to the suite named after her. The standard king size Sofitel bed is lost in a vast room with no evidence that it might once have been a crime writer’s retreat.

If you want to disappear into the privacy of your own world while still be get away from it all, try the Presidential suite where President Mitterand enjoyed his last holiday abroad, and President Chirac followed in his footsteps. There you have an immense bedroom, a private dining room, and drawing - a discrete and easily secured apartment for kings, presidents and also you.

A room with a private balcony at the Old Cateract is perfect antidote to the frenzy of tour groups, sightseeing, and people trying to sell you things. Treat yourself to even a single night and you will not have any regrets.