Hot rooms
Top hotels in Cairo and Yerevan
[ CAIRO ]
Enjoy the Nile in style
WHEN THE TERRACE DECK OPENED last year at the Sofitel El Gezireh, it was the final touch to the top-to-bottom reconstruction of the five-star hotel’s 433 rooms and suites. Open only in the evenings from 7pm till 2am, it has become as popular with locals as visitors to the Egyptian capital, thanks to its central location and the views it commands over the Nile.
Ah yes, the Nile breeze: in the heat of the scorching Cairene summer, the floating bar of Le Deck gives you a natural cool-down after the air conditioning blasts within the bedrooms. Head out for a sundowner cocktail or a freshly squeezed melon juice and nibble on light snacks such as selection of mezze.
With the Sofitel’s high staff to guest ratio, you’re looked after promptly yet discreetly – though, of course, a 27-storey building (though no 13th floor) means that housekeeping needs to schlep a fair way before they reach your room if you need that extra pillow. Double rooms start from £159, including breakfast.
Robina Dam Sofitel El Gezirah, 3 El Thawra Council Street, +20 (0)2 2737 3737, www.sofitel.com
[ YEREVAN ]
It’s all about who you know
IF WE HADN’T STAYED AT HOTEL MEG, we wouldn’t have had lunch at the home of Gayane Areuchatyan, a brilliant chef whose apartment moonlights as a restaurant. Nor would we have seen a performance by Levon Malkhasian, the all-time Armenian jazz great, or have savoured the city’s best barbecued liver at an eatery overlooking the Hrazdan Gorge.
Yerevan is full of fascinating places and people, and Hotel Meg’s owner Aris Ajand seems to know them all. The charismatic American-Armenian runs the city’s only boutique hotel, a small and sleek operation located two minutes’ stroll from the Cascade and its extraordinary view of Mount Ararat looming over the city.
It has seven spacious suites (one room from $80 off peak, two rooms from $125). Best of all, it offers business travellers and tourists the kind of local knowledge required to navigate a city so poorly served by guidebooks.
Matthew Lee Hotel Meg, Jrashat 1, +374 10 581 008, www.hotelmeg.com
