Sharm El Sheikh holidays - travel guide - activities & sights

Dive into the warm waters of the Red Sea and you'll enter a vibrant world of life and colour. The reefs of Tiran and Ras Mohammed are two of the best spots, both reached by boat within two hours of Sharm El Sheikh. You can expect to see huge schools of barracudas, sharks and murrays.

It's well worth visiting one of the traditional cafes, where apart from tea and coffee you can try smoking a mixture of tobacco, apple and honey through a 'shisha' pipe.

Most hotels in Sharm El Sheikh have their own beaches with coral reefs, which are excellent for snorkelling and diving, as they offer an amazing blend of marine life, natural features and shipwrecks to explore. The public beaches in Naama bay and old Sharm are sandy and perfect for relaxing. If you're staying in El Gouna or Hurghada, all the main hotels are set on their own beaches which are great for swimming or sunbathing. In addition to this, El Gouna also has a beautiful marina to stroll along and admire all the boats which are moored.

Built between 527 and 565 AD, St Catherine's is the oldest Christian monastery in the world. With 35m tall granite walls, it's surrounded by gardens and cypresses and situated at an altitude of 4,854 feet at the foot of Mount Moses, making it a very picturesque sight.You'll notice an evergreen bush with a chapel built around it. In fact, this is the 'Burning Bush'. that Moses encountered that was, miraculously, unconsumed by its own flames.