Cairo Marriott Hotel

In November 1869 Empress Eugénie of France came to Egypt for the opening of the Suez Canal, and Khedive Ismail had a palace built on Gezira island to receive her. That building, the Gezirah Palace, is the core of the Cairo Marriott Hotel in Zamalek, Cairo. The cast-iron arcades, the painted ceilings and the garden terraces are the Khedive's; the two bedroom towers on either side belong to Marriott.

History

Ismail wanted Cairo to look like Paris, and the Gezirah Palace was part of that programme, with the Opera House and the boulevards of downtown. The architect was Julius Franz, an Austrian in the Khedive's service, and the ironwork of the arcades and the salamlik was designed by the Prussian architect Carl von Diebitsch and cast in Germany. Ismail's debts brought the Egyptian state to bankruptcy within a decade, and the palace was sold. By the 1890s it was operating as the Gezirah Palace Hotel, and in the early twentieth century it became the private residence of the Lotfallah family, Syrian-Lebanese merchants and bankers.

After the revolution of 1952 the palace was taken over by the state and run as the Omar Khayyam Hotel, with a casino. Marriott took the lease in the 1970s, built two 20-storey towers, the Zamalek Tower and the Gezira Tower, on the garden flanks, restored the palace rooms and opened the whole as the Cairo Marriott in 1982. The casino name survived in the hotel's registered title.

Architecture and design

The palace is a long two-storey building in a Moorish and neo-Islamic style, facing the Nile across its gardens. Von Diebitsch's cast-iron arcade, with horseshoe arches and lattice spandrels, runs along the front and was one of the earliest uses of prefabricated iron in an Egyptian royal building. Inside, the former reception halls keep their marble floors, gilded plaster, mirrors and chandeliers, and now serve as the lobby, the Saraya Gallery and the function rooms. The towers are plain concrete blocks of their period, and most rooms in them face either the river or the gardens.

Rooms and suites

With more than 1,000 rooms, the Cairo Marriott is among the largest hotels in Egypt. Rooms are in the two towers, with suites on the upper floors and Nile views from the higher rooms on the river side. The Executive Lounge serves club-level floors. The palace itself holds no bedrooms.

Dining

The hotel has long run more than a dozen restaurants and bars. Roy's Country Kitchen, the Egyptian Nights restaurant and the Omar's Café coffee shop are in the garden and palace areas, Torii serves Japanese food and JW's Steakhouse is the formal room. The Saraya Gallery, in a palace hall, is the afternoon tea room, and the Garden Promenade Café on the terrace is where Zamalek meets for coffee. The Harry's Pub and the Sports Bar draw a local as much as a hotel crowd.

Wellness

The outdoor pool in the gardens, with a whirlpool beside it, is open all year, and a health club with a gym and spa treatment rooms operates in one of the towers. The gardens between the palace and the river are the best open space of any hotel in central Cairo.

Weddings and events

The Aida Ballroom is the largest function room and is a fixture of Cairo's wedding calendar; the palace halls take smaller receptions and the gardens are used for open-air dinners. The hotel hosts conferences, exhibitions and banquets throughout the year, with a business centre in the tower. Capacities vary by room and layout.

Location

Zamalek is the northern half of Gezira island, an embassy and residential district reached from downtown by the Qasr el-Nil and 6th October bridges. The Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square is about 15 minutes by car depending on traffic, and the Opera metro station on the southern part of the island is the nearest. Cairo International Airport is roughly 25 kilometres to the north-east. As a luxury hotel in Cairo with a royal palace at its centre, it has no equivalent on the Nile.