El Gouna Part 2......

Downtown is the other main place to go for entertainment in El Gouna and as you can imagine every time 'Downtown' is mentioned everyone bursts into the Petula Clark version of the song!

We only did one trip Downtown, during the day, which wasn't such a good idea as we went after lunch and of course most places were shut - hence the old saying "Only Mad Dogs and Englishmen(women) go out in the midday sun"! Anyway there was a local bus stopped right outside the hotel every 15 minutes, which would take you Downtown for 50 pence each for an all day ticket, so we thought why not. The bus was a real boneshaker, though very colourful as you'll see from the photograph, and the place was really pretty with a lovely little craft centre, but the stalls were shut when we went. Undeterred we had a walk around and then sat in the square and had a cooling beer before we hopped on the bus back to the hotel.

The main place to relax after our evening meal was on the sun terrace - too hot to use during the day but lovely at night. There was a resident singer and the animation team did a quiz and bingo once a week. The quiz was fun, but the Bingo - well let's just say I was glad when someone won because I couldn't make head nor tail of it and I know how to play bingo! It was good fun though.

There was a Caberet show in the outdoor theatre at the new Duport building (the second part of the hotel), this was organised by the animation team, who really put their heart and soul into the productions.

Just outside the hotel was Peanut's Bar where you could either sit inside (air conditioned) or on the terrace enjoying the marina and the cooling breeze, which was evident most evenings.

Down at the new part of the hotel they had the Duport Pool Bar which had fantastic four poster type loungers all around the circular pool with a bar selling drinks and food. It was at night that the Pool Bar really shone though when it was transformed into a boudoir! See the slide show to see the transformation. All the loungers were scattered with huge multicoloured cushions and guest DJ's were hired playing anything from Latin to House Music - we went there most evenings.

Because we were all inclusive all drinks at the hotel, Peanuts and the Pool Bar were free until midnight for us, and it was great that we weren't restricted to just the hotel bar.

You might think we spent most evenings eating and drinking - you'd be right, but hey that's all part of the holiday right?

El Gouna Part 3 coming soon. See El Gouna Part 1 here.