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Full Description
From the earliest resthouses serving travelers on the Overland Route between Britain and Bombay to the grand Edwardian palaces on the Nile that made Egypt the exotic alternative to wintering on the Riviera, the hotels of Alexandria, Cairo, Luxor, and Aswan were always about far more than just bed and board. As bridgeheads for African exploration, neutral territories for conducting diplomacy, headquarters for armies, providers of home comforts for writers, painters, scholars, and archaeologists in the field, and social hubs for an international elite, more of importance happened in Egypt's hotels than in any other setting. It was through the hotels that visitors from the west-the earliest adventurers, then the travelers and, finally, the tourists-experienced the Orient. This book tells the stories of Egypt's historic hotels (including the Cecil, Shepheard's, the Mena House, Gezira Palace, Semiramis, Winter Palace, and Cataract) and some of the people who stayed in them, from Amelia Edwards, Lucie Duff Gordon and Florence Nightingale to Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle, Winston Churchill, and TE Lawrence.
Contents
Discovering Egypt: Imperial ambitions pave the way for Nile travel and mass tourism
Arrival in Alexandria: First experiences of the clamor of Egypt
San Stefano: A taste of the Riviera among the dunes of Ramleh
Cecil: High society soirées and literary high notes
In Cairo: Meeting places of the Occident and Orient
Shepheard's: The most famous hotel in the world
Mena House: An English country home at the Pyramids
Continental-Savoy: The Napoleon of Egyptian hotels and his hospitality empire
Gezira Palace: A hotel fit for an Empress
Semiramis: The first Cairo hotel on the Nile
Windsor: The end of an era and a change in the hotel scene
The Town that Cook Built: The birth of Nile cruising and the growth of Luxor
Winter Palace: When Tutankhamun was king again
wintering on the Nile: Aswan, the Upper Egyptian alternative to Cannes and Nice
Cataract: The hotel whose legend was secured by murder
Epilogue
A Note on Luggage Labels
Select Bibliography & Sources
Index
Illustration Credits & Acknowledgments
