Egypt

From the editors of Condé Nast Traveler:

Occupying conjoined 1920s villas in Maadi, a leafy suburb created to house British civil servants and Egyptians working in the court of the Khedive Abbas Hilmi II, this whitewashed structure with black window casings and balcony trims looks like an updated Cotswold mansion. Egyptian owner Tarek El Gendy and his Dutch wife, Beryl, have filled the 13 guest suites with a tasteful mix of contemporary Egyptian art and European and Oriental antiques. Guests can curl up in a library stocked with design magazines and books on Egyptian art and history, or lay by the pool in a lush garden of mature mango, acacia, and date palm trees. The indoor-outdoor restaurant serves European-Egyptian fusion dishes (the chef stirs coconut into his baba ghanoush, a tasty twist on an Egyptian classic). Amid the quiet neighborhood of historic villas, mosques, a synagogue, and low-rise apartment buildings, the hotel is a five-minute stroll to Road Nine, Maadi's main street, popular for its mix of vegetable sellers and small souks offering shisha pipes, cartouches, and other souvenirs. The Cairo Metro stops here on the way to Coptic Cairo and Tahrir Square, while the Pyramids are 30 minutes away by car. The helpful hotel staff can arrange taxis, feluccas, and private guides.—2010 Hot List

Which room to book: All the suites are individually furnished and have different layouts. Rosetta, under the eaves off a third-floor landing, comes with an especially large balcony overlooking the pool

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