Porto Matrouh Resort

If a change of scenery is needed, the Porto Matrouh Resort team recommends a quick 30-minute drive along the coast to Agiba beach. Agiba means miracle in Arabic, and the turquoise waters and white sands of this sheltered cove certainly fit the bill – perhaps best avoided during the high season, it’s a quiet haven throughout the rest of the year. In Marsa Matrouh itself, head to Rommel’s Cave – there’s a museum here dedicated to German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, who holed up in the town’s caves to plan the north African campaigns during World War II. Further along the coast in El Alamein (a little over two hours away), history buffs can explore war cemeteries and a war museum focused on the same period. For those who are up to lengthier jaunts, the three-and-a-half-hour journey to Siwa Oasis would be well worth it for temples, museums, Greco-Roman tombs, fortresses and a glimpse of the Saharan Great Sand Sea. Venture in the other direction for urban days among the palaces, gardens, catacombs, museums, zoos and aquariums of Alexandria (four hours), the Nile experiences, markets, Sufi whirling and antiquities of Cairo (five hours), and the famed pyramids of Giza.