BenBen by Dhara, Aswan, Nile island hotel review, VANE

Name: VANE review: BenBen by Dhara
Item: BenBen by Dhara Hotels
Author: Dimitris Stathopoulos

By Dimitris Stathopoulos

Cleared all six Place Room Service Table Soul Value

Most of Egypt's great hotels line the banks of the Nile. This one sits in the middle of it. BenBen stands on Heissa, an old Nubian island near Aswan, built straight onto the granite boulders that break the river at the First Cataract. You reach it by boat. White walls, domed and vaulted in the Nubian way, climb the rock in tiers, so from the water the place looks less built than grown out of the stone. Across the channel lies the Temple of Philae, the island sanctuary of Isis that engineers lifted block by block to higher ground when the dams rose and the old island began to drown. The name carries its own weight. In the older cosmology the benben was the first mound to surface from the water at the beginning of things, and a hotel perched on rock above the current earns the reference more than most.

The table

The restaurant sits over the water, open to the river on one side and shaded by a canopy woven from palm. The cooking is Nubian and Egyptian, closer to a home kitchen than a grand one, and the better for it. Breakfast runs long here, as it should when the alternative is watching the light move across the granite. A terrace bar takes the evening, when the rocks still hold the heat of the day and the feluccas thin out on the water.

Why it's in VANE

Aswan is where Egypt turns into Nubia, the last real town before the river heads south into the desert, warmer and slower than Luxor or Cairo and far less used by the luxury trade. BenBen makes the most of its particular piece of it. The rooms are plain in the right way, white plaster and worked wood, most with a terrace and a Jacuzzi angled at the Nile, a few suites with a pool of their own. There is a spa, and yoga if you want it, though the island asks for very little beyond time. It is small, and reached only by boat, which keeps it to itself. Take a room facing Philae, wait for the long evening light to cross the water, and let Aswan set the pace.

VANE Folio

A longer reading of BenBen by Dhara: the island at the First Cataract, the house built from the rock, the table over the water.

Read Folio No. 102 →

BenBen lit at dusk on its granite island, mirrored in the still Nile

A suite with curved floor-to-ceiling windows over the Nile and an infinity pool edge

The restaurant under a woven palm canopy, arches open to the river at dusk

A private terrace with a plunge pool above the granite boulders and the Nile

A Nubian room with a vaulted wooden ceiling, carved plaster rosette and platform bed

A yoga deck above the Nile looking across to ancient ruins on the far bank

VANE note. This is a researched profile rather than a first-hand stay. The facts on the island setting, the Nubian architecture, the kitchen and the view across to Philae were checked against the hotel's official information and are reported as such; we have not stayed. The stay date and payment arrangement do not apply.
Photos: BenBen by Dhara Hotels (official), with credit.

Asked and answered

Where is BenBen by Dhara?

On Heissa, a Nubian island on the Nile at the First Cataract near Aswan, in southern Egypt, reached by boat.

What is the style of BenBen by Dhara?

A Nubian island retreat: white domed and vaulted rooms built onto the granite, most with a private terrace and a Nile-facing Jacuzzi, and some suites with their own pool.

What is the dining like at BenBen by Dhara?

One restaurant set over the water serving Nubian and Egyptian cooking, with a terrace bar for the evening.

What is near BenBen by Dhara?

The Temple of Philae across the water, the town of Aswan and the First Cataract, the Aswan High Dam and the granite quarries with the Unfinished Obelisk.