The Hotel

Our hotel was the New Pola Hotel, on the East Bank, just off the main road through Luxor, around 500 metres from Luxor Temple (the travel agent state it is approximately 350 metres from the Temple but that is wishful thinking). It was a 3 star hotel which suited us fine. The last thing I wanted to do was book in to a 5 star hotel and spend the week in the hotel. It was to be a base, nothing more, which worked out rather well.

The hotel was kept spotlessly clean. Every day somebody would be polishing the floor, wiping surfaces, etc. I even saw them polishing the fire extinguishers!

The Room

It consisted of a bedroom with twin beds (my wife didn't like that but it meant I got to keep the covers at night!), a bathroom, and a balcony with a view overlooking the Nile! Perfect! There was a television in the room but only three channels that we could understand. One channel showed movies all day, in English with Arabic subtitles. There was one news channel (Euronews or similar) and RTL, a German channel which Sabine, my wife, watched at times (she is German). The remaining 15 or so channels were all in Arabic.

The View

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The last picture shows the mountains which hide the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, etc. We could just make out Queen Hatshepsut's Temple at Deir el Bahari so I set my camera on maximum zoom and took the following pictures...

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One day, across the Nile, I could make out shapes moving. Again, with zoom, I took the following pictures...

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The following pictures show Calesh drivers, risking their horse's neck in the crazy Egyptian traffic...

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The sunsets over the River Nile were wonderful and, from our balcony, we had a wonderful view. Click here to view The River Nile Sunsets.

The Food

The food at the hotel was basic and there wasn't much in the way of variety, but it was cheap and edible.

The Staff

The waiting staff were a bit useless. If you wanted to eat or drink, the best plan was to order around 30 minutes before hand as service is obviously not their strong point.

The house keeping staff were fantastic. The room would be cleaned every day and the maids would create wonderful designs with the sheets and towels, each day being a new design. We would actually look forward to coming back to a room at the end of the day to see what designs they had made. The pictures below show a nile scene they had made with the covers with one towel made into a boat and the remaining ones made into birds. My wife's bedspread had been made into a large swan.

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