Cairo - The illustrious hotels in the lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched Grand Hotels of Egypt in the Golden Age of Travel by Andrew Humphreys (AUC Press) met one of three fates in the main. The most fortunate destiny was that of the hotels still existing today, some in fine fettle and world renowned. Other establishments were pulled down, while a few have withered away, the buildings more or less surviving with just faint echoes of their former days of glory. However, the legendary Shepheard's Hotel, long-time bastion of the British and symbol of the occupation, met a different end, when it was set on fire in the incendiary events of the so-called Black Saturday, 26 January 1952 and burnt to the ground. The hotel's life and times have been extensively written about and illustrated, but this new book, which contains many pictures that have never previously been reproduced, includes a remarkably sharp and detailed photograph of the razed hotel the following day. Viewed from above, the only remaining part of the hotel's structure was the great dome of the Moorish Hall rising from the rubble. Its Opera Square neighbour and chief rival the Continental (also known as the Grand Continental and Continental-Savoy) survived Black Saturday, but suffered a long process of attrition. Nevertheless, some Cairo residents and visitors are intrigued by this massive and historic building and have fantasized about it being reborn as a hotel, while others have had demolition in mind. "By the 1980s the place had finally become so decrepit it stopped taking guests altogether … there has been more than one scheme to demolish the building, which is hardly surprising considering that it occupies a whole block of prime Downtown real estate, but legal challenges from the owners of the shops still occupying street-front units have always put a halt to any such initiatives," Humphreys recounts. On a less palatial scale is the nearby Windsor Hotel in Alfi Bey Street, which has been in Egyptian hands since 1962 and is still owned by the Doss family. While little documented, it stands out in a narrative of change and loss in Cairo ... “at the Windsor the vagaries of its past hardly matter; the history of the hotel remains present in every piece of furniture and every fitting”. Many cultural and political strands are interwoven by Andrew Humphreys in this history of Egypt's grand hotels, essentially from the latter half of the 19th century to the mid-20th century. “They were outposts of Europe planted on Egyptian soil. ... The hotels were also anchors for the country's European enclave.” However, a new wind was blowing with the advent of the redoubtable Thos. Cook and Son, synonymous with tourism in Egypt. John Mason Cook transformed �" and made more accessible �" travel in Egypt from the 1870s, with organised tours and the introduction of double-decked Nile steamers sailing between Cairo and Aswan, overtaking the independent travellers in their dahabiyas, whose return journey would typically take some sixty days. Thos. Cook & Son were also associated with the building of two of Egypt's most famous hotels, standing proud today: the Winter Palace opened in Luxor in 1907, and earlier, around the turn of the century, the Cataract in Aswan, both in outstanding locations overlooking the Nile. Humphreys cites The Egyptian Gazette as “the single richest source of facts and frivolous detail” for his epic work. The Gazette described the Winter Palace as “the finest and most elaborately-schemed hotel within the land of Egypt”. It was Tutankhamun who put modern Luxor and ancient Thebes on the world map, when his fabulous tomb was opened by archaeologist Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon in January 1923, the Winter Palace acting as their base. (Two months later Lord Carnarvon died in Cairo at the Continental-Savoy from an infected insect bite received in Luxor). The book Grand Hotels is a visual delight: diverting and informative. The illustrations include contemporary photographs and postcards, caricatures of the tourist abroad, hotel memorabilia and evocative posters. The hotels' luggage labels, whose issue finally ceased in the 1960s, are a charming motif. “The luggage labels of old might have conveyed an air of snobbery and self-satisfaction, but they were also items of miniature beauty. For anybody lucky enough to come across one now, they are a rare and tangible link to a lost era of glamour and romance,” concludes Humphreys. Grand Hotels of Egypt in the Golden Age of Travel, Andrew Humphreys, AUC Press, Cairo, 2012, 216 pages, 274 illustrations, hardback, LE 200.
