Sidi Abd el-Rahman (near El-Alamein, Mediterranean Coast)

Nine kilometres past the last of El-Alamein's battlefield memorials, a spurt of new housing anounces Sidi Abd el-Rahman, which is used as a pit-stop by buses going to Matrouh and Siwa.

Nine kilometres past the last of the battlefield memorials, a spurt of new housing anounces SIDI ABD EL-RAHMAN, which is used as a pit-stop by buses going to Matrouh and Siwa. There's no point in lingering here unless you're going to use the stunning white beach at the El-Alamein Hotel (tel 03/468 0140, fax 468 0341; US$65–108/£E300–500), a fancy resort where the day-charge for a cabin and lunch for two is £E350, and the rooms and villas are often reserved up to a year in advance. It lies about 3km past a township established to settle Awlad Ali Bedouin who moved in from Libya onto the lands of the weaker Morabiteen tribe a couple of centuries ago. Many have abandoned their traditional goat's-hair tents for stone houses, but they still maintain flocks, which they graze on scrubland or pen behind their now-immobile homes. Ten kilometres into the desert behind them lies a graveyard of Panzers, destroyed in the final rout of the Afrika Korps from the battlefield; it was here that Von Thoma, the commander of the nearly obliterated 15th and 21st Panzer divisions, surrendered. Earlier in the campaign, the Afrika Korps' headquarters and tank repair depot were located at Sidi Abd el-Rahman, behind a belt of minefields and gun emplacements 8km in depth.

There's no point in lingering here unless you're going to use the stunning white beach at the El-Alamein Hotel (tel 492-1228, fax 492-1232; ЈE300-600 / US$100-200), a fancy resort where the day-charge for a cabin and lunch for two is ЈE180, and the rooms and villas are often reserved up to a year in advance.

About 15 miles west of El Alamein lies Sidi Abdel Rahman, with beautiful sugar white beaches and the Mediterranean.  This is one of those virgin beach areas you read about but rarely see.  Bedouins inhabit a small village a little over a mile away. 

It lies at the end of a 3km spur road off the highway, a world away from the township established to settle Awlad Ali Bedouin who moved in from Libya onto the lands of the weaker Morabiteen tribe a couple of centuries ago.

Nine kilometres past the last of El-Alamein's battlefield memorials, a spurt of new housing anounces SIDI ABD EL-RAHMAN , which is used as a pit-stop by buses going to Matrouh and Siwa. There's no point in lingering here unless you're going to use the stunning white beach at the El-Alamein Hotel (tel 492-1228, fax 492-1232; GBPE300-600 / US$100-200), a fancy resort where the day-charge for a cabin and lunch for two is GBPE180, and the rooms and villas are often reserved up to a year in advance. It lies at the end of a 3km spur road off the highway, a

world away from the township established to settle Awlad Ali Bedouin who moved in from Libya onto the lands of the weaker Morabiteen tribe a couple of centuries ago. Many have abandoned their traditional goat's-hair tents for stone houses, but they still maintain flocks, which they graze on scrubland or pen behind their now-immobile homes. Ten kilometres into the desert behind them lies a graveyard of Panzers , destroyed in the final rout of the Afrika Korps from the battlefield.

Many have abandoned their traditional goat's-hair tents for stone houses, but they still maintain flocks, which they graze on scrubland or pen behind their now-immobile homes.

Ten kilometres into the desert behind them lies a graveyard of Panzers , destroyed in the final rout of the Afrika Korps from the battlefield.