Only a place that carries the confidence of its own originality and beauty can introduce itself with a quote from Herodotus – “Oases are “islands of the blessed.” And such is Adrere Amellal, an astounding desert lodge occupying a promontory in the oasis of Siwa, Egypt.  “This is a place with a very special, luxurious sense of the primitive, surrounded by the kind of magic that only ancient tribes, majestic mountains and ruthless desert climates can conjure,” wrote W. Greig in Tatler Magazine.  Benedict Allen adds, “At night it is so quiet that you begin to hear the stars.”
I have tracked Adrere Amellal since it opened in 1999, so enchanted have I been  by the organic shape and the stillness of place, so attracted am I by the color and flicker of candlelight, the blackness of a desert sky.  This year, when everyone is laying claim to the greenness of their properties and their connectedness to surrounding communities, Adrere Amellal stands out by its silence, its dignity, its nobless oblige, in fact.  It simply is what others would like to be.  This is an Egypt we don’t often think about; this is an Egypt that is outside of the tourist box.
www.adrereamellal.net