11 Historical Hotels in Egypt That You Can Still Stay At Today
Updated: Dec 17, 2022
Listen, Egypt is a country with a 7,000 year old civilization, 5,000+ year old modern cities, 1,000+ year old mosques, and some of the oldest functional monasteries in the world. And while our hotels might not be quite that old, they bear witness to many decades of modern Egyptian history -- and are still around to tell the tale.
1. Cairo Marriott Hotel & Omar Khayyam Casino
Location: Zamalek, Cairo
Established: 1869
Original name: Palace Al Gezirah
This modern-day Zamalek favorite was built by Khedive Ismail over 150 years ago to be a guest palace for foreign royalty and other VIPs visiting during the Suez Canal’s inauguration celebrations.
Khedive Ismail decided to design the palace in the neoclassical style which was popular in Europe at the time. He signed on Austrian architect Julius Franz (later known as Franz Bey) and French architect De Curel Del Rosso, who had also designed the Abdeen Palace (for more awesome Cairo museums you need to check out, read our article here). The interiors were done by German architect Carl von Diebitsch.
Interesting story: the building’s own architect, Franz Bey, a man apparently not known for his modesty, said the Palace Al Gezirah was “the most beautiful building of modern Arabic style in its category”. Its first royal guests, the Prince and Princess of Wales, called the palace “uselessly extravagant” (lol).
The palace operated as the exclusive Gezirah Palace Hotel until it was seized by the government in 1879 for unpaid debt and acquired by the Egyptian Hotels Company. It was later nationalized in 1969 during the time of Gamal Abdel Nasser, and became the Omar Khayyam hotel, later to be taken over by Marriott International in the 1970s. They were the ones who undertook the project of adding two large Nile-facing towers to the palace.
The Cairo Marriott that stands today is still the same palace that housed Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, and hosted the wedding of Khedive Ismail’s son which lasted for 40 days; many of the original artwork and furniture can be found in the hotel’s reception rooms and lounges.
Cairo Marriott's website.
2. Marriott Mena House
Location: Giza Plateau, Greater Cairo
Established: 1869
Original name: Mena House Family Hotel
1869 must have been a busy year for Khedive Ismail, because not only did he build the Gezirah Palace we spoke about above, but he also created the hunting lodge at the foot of the Pyramids which would later become the famous Mena House hotel.
When Empress Eugenie came to Cairo for the Suez Canal inauguration, it wasn’t enough that Khedive Ismail built a whole guest palace for her and other royalty to stay at; he also built a road that led from Cairo to the Great Pyramids of Giza, and built a royal hunting lodge for her to rest and have lunch at during her Pyramids trip.
The hunting lodge was then bought by a wealthy English couple on their honeymoon, Frederick and Jessie Head, because Frederick thought the air there to be beneficial (one living in modern-day Cairo can only laugh and/or cry at the irony). The couple enlarged the lodge into an estate and named it Mena House, after the first pharaoh of Egypt.
After Frederick died, the house was bought by another English couple and turned into a hotel in 1887 --- the “Mena House Family Hotel”. A swimming pool was added a few years later, becoming the first swimming pool in Egypt. The hotel changed hands several times throughout the years before its management was acquired by the Marriott.
Interesting story: tons of famous politicians, celebrities and royalty stayed at the Mena House over the years, including Frank Sinatra, who performed at a charity event at the Pyramids in 1979 and sang “Strangers on the Nile”.
Marriott Mena House's website.
3. Sofitel Winter Palace
Location: Luxor
Established: 1886/1907
Original name: Winter Palace Hotel
Interesting story: so, the official hotel website for the Sofitel Winter Palace states that the hotel opened in 1886, and they went so far as to literally name one of their restaurants ‘1886’ -- talk about doubling down. But apparently, according to historians, that’s false -- the hotel actually opened its doors in 1907, according to, among other things, the announcement of its opening in the Egyptian Gazette newspaper in 1907. Today’s modern management might have gotten its founding date confused with the Luxor Hotel, another historic hotel that used to be right next to the Winter Palace. Oops.
The Winter Palace Hotel was created by Cairo hoteliers in collaboration with Thomas Cook and Sons, and its construction was done by an Italian company. In January 1907, they celebrated its inauguration by a picnic at the Valley of the Kings.
What really put the Winter Palace on the map was Howard Carter’s discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922. Reporters, foreign press and interested visitors from all over the world poured into Luxor and the Winter Palace was used as Carter’s newsroom to keep everyone up to speed on the discovery.
Sofitel Winter Palace's website.
4. Windsor Hotel
Location: Downtown Cairo
Established: 1893
Original name: Hotel Windsor-Maison Suisse
**Editor's note: Sad news -- the Windsor has recently permanently closed. We'll keep this listing though for those who are interested in its history. RIP Windsor.
The Windsor in Downtown Cairo was built back in 1893 as part of a baths complex for the royal family, and its architecture is very reminiscent of the interior courtyards of the caravanserai Wekalet el Ghouri in Old Cairo, next to Khan el Khalili. People call it ‘colonial-era neo-Mamluk architecture’ which is a mouthful, but there you go.
Windsor was mainly known for being a British Officers Club during the First World War, and little had changed decor-wise since those days, albeit much older and more faded. Until recently, their vintage ‘Barrel Lounge’ was popular with Downtown bar-hoppers -- it got its name due to the seats being made of old wooden barrels.
After its stint as the British Officers Club, Windsor was bought by a Swiss hotelier with plans to make it an annex of the world-famous Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo (RIP). It was named the Hotel Windsor-Maison Suisse until it was taken over in 1962 by the Doss family.
Interesting story: the Windsor’s manually-operated wooden elevator (which is still in use today) was the oldest elevator in Egypt and one of the oldest operating elevators of its type in the world.
Windsor Hotel's website.
5. Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Hotel
Location: Aswan
Established: 1899
Original name: Cataract Hotel
This world-famous hotel was built in 1899 by Thomas Cook and Sons, after the Cairo-Aswan railway was built in 1898 and there was a sudden influx of visitors and and not enough hotels. They bought nine feddans from the government and hired architect Henri Favarger, the same architect who designed the Mena House.
It was an instant hit and quickly garnered a lot of famous guests over the years, including Tsar Nicholas II, Winston Churchill and Princess Diana. It became literally the stuff of ‘legends’ as its current name suggests, when Agatha Christie used it as the backdrop for her famous novel, Death on the Nile. The 1978 movie they made out of the book was shot there too (so was the famous Egyptian series ‘Grand Hotel’).
Interesting story: when the construction workers were leveling the ground to build the hotel, they came across 200 mummies buried there. The sad part is that they destroyed them with their shovels.
Sofitel Legend Old Cataract's website.
A full city guide to Aswan is here.
6. Paradise Inn Le Metropole
Location: Alexandria
Established: 1902
Original name: Le Metropole
Even though the hotel Le Metropole was built in the early 20th century by Greek and Italian architects, the history regarding the piece of land where the hotel was built is *much* older. Like, around 2,000 years older!
Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt who probably needs no introduction, built the Caesareum of Alexandria, a temple to honor her lover Julius Caesar. After her suicide, Roman emperor Augustus turned the Caesareum into his own cult temple, and brought over two obelisks from Heliopolis to adorn the exterior. Even though it was Augustus who had brought them over, they became known as ‘Cleopatra’s Needles’.
The temple later became a church in the 4th century AD, and was destroyed in 912 AD. Cleopatra’s Needles were given away in an economic and political move by Khedive Mohammed Ali in 1879 -- one obelisk now stands in Central Park, NYC, and the other on the Thames embankment in London.
The hotel that was built where the obelisks once stood is none other than Le Metropole, and instead of the Caesareum, there’s now a statue of Saad Zaghloul, a nationalist leader.
The hotel today is dated but still carries a lot of its original turn of the 20th century charm, as well as original paintings and antiques.