Princess Hotel, Eilat
I basically stopped keeping notes once we got to Eilat, other than a list of places where we went to eat.
18 to 22 March – relaxed in Eilat. Dined:
* 18 March El Gaucho,
* 19 March La Barracuda,
* 20 March Mandy’s,
* 21 March Paprika,
* 22 March El Gaucho.
We clearly liked the El Gaucho best – still getting good reviews it seems, 25 years later.
But we took photographs at Mandy’s – a Chinese restaurant owned by Mandy Rice-Davies, whose photo embellished the walls of the restaurant.
We didn’t take all that many photos while relaxing at The Princess – in truth we didn’t do much.
I do recall the breakfasts being superb, ironically including a smoked fishes fest almost worthy of cousin Jacqueline’s fast-breakers.
For reasons I hardly need to explain, we then did very little during the day, apart from lounging, reading and swimming.
In particular, we tended to skip lunch, other than perhaps some nuts and a beer.
We befriended a camel, whom we named Cadissa, convinced that this single camel had followed us all around the Levant and was now resting up in Eilat along with us. On subsequent holidays in the Middle East and Maghreb we would often encounter Cadissa again…or so we would say, anyway.
In short, we had a very relaxing and enjoyable break at that place. Although we don’t normally go for that type of big hotel, it was just the ticket after a rigorous touring holiday.
Our flight home was quite late in the day, so we made an impromptu arrangement for our transport vehicle to give us a brief look around Tel Aviv-Yafo before we went on to the airport. I think we had used up all of our film ahead of that mini tour; in any case we have no pictures from it. Janie hadn’t seen any of it before – I hadn’t been up top to see the contrast of and views from Yafo before.
As an interesting echo of my grilling in Lebanon on arrival in the Levant…
…I was given quite a grilling on exit by an Israeli security guy, who perhaps found our Lebanon, Syria & Jordan trip a matter of concern. He tried to wrong-foot me by telling me that I had been inconsistent in my account of where we had been.
When I repeated what I had said and then shown him the Abercrombie & Kent itinerary, he apologised to me and then let me through.
An apology from an official – there’s a first time and a last time for everything I suppose.
You can see all the pictures from this trip in a single, 300+ picture album, by clicking here or below.
