Ignore the travel snobs – the Red Sea Riviera offers five-star breaks at three-star prices

After countless monochrome miles of desert, the Red Sea Riviera resort where I’d be spending the next few days shimmered ahead of me in vivid coloured slabs – viridian palms, cyan lagoons, ochre buildings – like an oasis. Doing a “build it and they will come” when Dubai was still little more than a sleepy fishing village, Egyptian-Montenegrin billionaire Samih Sawiris (part of Africa’s richest family, with a combined net worth of $12.9 billion) bought this seven-mile strip of Red Sea coastline and created the El Gouna mega resort, complete with shops, restaurants and hotels, back in the early 1990s.

Some 35 years after building work began, I was staying at the resort’s flagship luxury hotel, The Chedi, an elegant idyll where paths lined with exotic cacti link a sandy beach and its attendant infinity pool to a cosy spa and several restaurants. In late December, and despite the shorts and T-shirt weather, a week’s stay in my spacious suite with sea-view balcony costs less than a couple of nights at a Heathrow Airport hotel.

“It’s even cheaper in January and February. That’s our low season and we only have around 50 per cent occupancy,” said Alex, the resort’s Russian-born manager who, like many of his fellow countrymen, moved to Egypt with his family a few decades ago. He told me that “gouna” derives from the Egyptian word for ‘lagoon’. “The resort is made up of dozens of islands linked together by bridges – that’s why it’s known as ‘Egypt’s Venice.’”

Compared to the dusty bustle of Hurghada, half an hour’s drive away, it was easy to understand the appeal of El Gouna, which attracts as many Egyptians as it does foreign holidaymakers. It has 18 hotels, a winery, manicured gardens, two golf courses and more than 100 restaurants – ranging from Italian and Lebanese to Vietnamese and Mexican.

Its old town, with its low-rise ochre buildings, arched doorways and warren of cobbled alleyways, offers all the charms of an ancient Egyptian quarter – minus the inconvenience of dust, dodgy odours and baksheesh-seeking touts.

There were restaurants dishing up pizzas, moussakas and burgers, next to kerbside cafes serving traditional street food, including my favourite mashed fava bean treat ful medames, for pennies. There was even a string of bazaar-like stores vending the usual souvenirs – copper tea sets, chocolate-covered dates, alabaster lamps, jade scarabs – only with price tags, so no need to haggle.

Hotels also ranged from top-notch luxurious to comfy and budget-friendly. Alex told me that Sultan Bey, an Egyptian-styled hotel with wooden beamed ceilings, stone arches, flagged floors and Shaabi folk music playing softly in the lobby, offers all-inclusive stays from £110 per night, while couple-friendly Cooks Club further along the coast has double rooms from £55. With Louxor beer at around £3, and cocktails starting at £5.50, El Gouna might not be as cheap as Hurghada, but it’s still inexpensive compared to popular winter-sun destinations like Andalusia or The Algarve.

Encompassing the western shore of the Gulf of Aqaba and mainland Egypt’s eastern coast, the Red Sea’s balmy climate, sand-swathed shores and fish-teeming seas are also a magnet for foreigners seeking an alternative lifestyle.

Wandering along El Gouna’s six-mile stretch of beach one afternoon I bumped into a retired couple from Sussex who bought a villa at El Gouna a few years ago. “We love Egypt, but we’re too old for all that haggling and stuff. This is the perfect place to live without all the bother,” they told me.

Later I learnt that El Gouna has some 24,000 permanent residents, and it’s rumoured that Angelina Jolie has a villa here.

Over the next few days I played golf, galloped across the desert on horseback and soared above the resort in a prop plane. Eager to escape the cossetted bubble, however, on my last day I headed for Hurghada.

Lured by cheap beer, budget accommodation and low-cost dive packages, Britons are increasingly flocking to this seaside resort, just a couple of hours’ flight time from the UK.

Far from the manufactured calm of my resort, Hurghada’s litter-strewn streets were chaotic, with street hawkers and pedestrians dashing between tooting cars piled high with mattresses, furniture – and in one case a goat precariously balanced on a bale of straw.

“The streets here are dangerous – cross them with fear in your heart. Also keep plenty of small coins for baksheesh, and don’t pay more than a quarter of any price you’re offered in the souk,” Omar, my driver from Sinai Taxi, advised during the 20-minute ride from El Gouna.

Soaking up the sights and sounds that were sadly lacking in El Gouna, I strolled along the café-lined seafront, got lost in the spice-scented alleys of Dahar and haggled in the souks. Sipping hibiscus drink karkade at traditional cafe El Khema that evening I chatted with Andy, an accountant from Blackpool who was smoking shisha at a neighbouring table.

“It’s paradise here wherever you’re staying,” he said when I told him about El Gouna. “Even I can’t afford a luxury hotel on the beach, the weather’s warm, people are friendly and the food’s cheap. He laughed. “It’s five-star life, at three-star prices – what’s not to like?”

How to do it

Fly from London Gatwick to Hurghada (fares from £89 with EasyJet; easyjet.com). Double rooms at The Chedi cost from £198 per night, including breakfast.

Sinai Taxi (sinaitaxi.com) has a fleet of comfortable air-conditioned cars.