4 - 10 October 2001
Issue No.554
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 4 - 10 October 2001 Issue No.554 |
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Breakfast with the stars
You can soften the prospect of getting up before dawn to take house guests to the pyramids by planning the breakfast you will have afterwards. Jenny Jobbins breakfasts with the best
There is no better finale to an early morning visit to the Giza plateau than breakfast in the Mena House coffee shop, with the view of the pyramids framed by palms and frangipanis.
Mena House at the turn of the century, showing the famous terrace where "anyone who was anyone" sat to watch the world go by
But first, the pyramids. We took a carriage, but it was so hot we ended up walking up every hill to spare the horse. The driver and I were kept occupied by hauling my guest away from camel drivers, who were constantly on the lookout for our guard to slip so they could make a fast dollar. No sooner were our backs turned than my friend was on top of a camel at ten pounds a round.
When a tout at the Sphinx tried to sell us a mid- 20th-century coin, we decided to call it a day. Time for breakfast. To my great glee, the carriage driver let me drive back to the Mena House. It had been a while since I last took the reins, but fortunately it was like riding a bike: after a minute or two I felt I could challenge any Cairo bus.
Until the 1860s the journey from Cairo to Giza entailed a long ride or drive and a river crossing on an uncomfortable ferryboat. This was not lightly undertaken twice in a day, so the Khedives built a royal lodge for themselves and their guests overlooking the Great Pyramid. They frequently lent the lodge to prominent visitors to the necropolis for use as a rest house. The original building is now the main dining room of the Mena House Hotel.
We made for the coffee shop and the choice of set breakfasts: fuul and eggs for my friend, feta cheese and fruit for me. Before it was glazed in, this was the terrace on which anyone who was anyone sat to watch his or her fellow guests. You name them -- they've all sat here: kings, queens and crown princes, presidents and politicians -- Winston Churchill, Chiang Kai-Shek, FD Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter -- soldiers such as Field Marshals Montgomery and Smutts and Sir Claude Auchinloch, celebrities Cecil B de Mille, the Aga Khan and Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, singers Edith Piaf and Umm Khulthoum, film stars Charlie Chaplin and the entire cast of Death on the Nile, and of course Omar Sherif, a regular habitué.
Much of the detail of the old hotel has been carefully preserved: the beautiful mashrabiya window screens, the lovely gardens and golf course. Many of the pieces of furniture and decorative objects are original. The Indian influence at Mena House today blends effectively with the Islamic style, and the hotel retains much of its former charm.
The Khedive Ismaïl himself made the first of many major additions to the lodge in 1869, when he added several rooms in preparation for the opening of the Suez Canal and the visit of the Empress Eugénie. The road from Cairo was constructed for the event, so that the royal and other distinguished guests could make the journey there in comfort.
The lodge continued to be used as a rest house for the Khedives' guests until the 1880s, when it was sold to a Mr and Mrs Frederick Head, who chose the name Mena House for their lovely residence. On Mr Head's death it was bought by Hugh and Ethel Locke-King. The Locke-Kings were fond of entertaining, and to accommodate their visitors decided to build extra rooms and turn their private home into a hotel, a venture which operated at a loss as Mrs Locke King preferred to regard the tourists as friends rather than paying guests.
However, the hotel was very popular. Until that time, ordinary visitors to the pyramids had to make the journey to and from Cairo in a day or camp overnight in the desert. Now, at last, it was possible to stay in luxury, and the owners planned just that -- "an hotel to end all hotels," according to the hotel's official history. It was the Locke-Kings who installed the beautiful mashrabiya, improved the gardens and put in the golf course.
Mena House was eventually acquired by the Egyptian Hotels Company, which owned most of Egypt's major hotels. In the late 1970s it was taken over by the Indian Oberoi chain.
Our breakfast was perfect, the service unhurried. When we couldn't squeeze in another drop of coffee we went to look at the main dining room, but sadly it was locked so we could do no more than peek through the door. I showed my friend the lavish décor of the Indian restaurant, but a prayer ceremony was going on there so we didn't linger. We were given one last piece of advice as we left: don't get caught by a cab as you leave the hotel, but stop one a little way down the street. But of course, any tourist knows that.
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