New booking platform and curator Egypt Beyond is opening travellers eyes to the wonders of Egypt, by spotlighting a collection of eight unique Egypt hotels and stays across the country. The collection includes four Art Deco Cairo apartments, a beacon of the city’s lost golden age, two design-led Nile River boats transporting you straight to an Agatha Christie novel, an eco lodge in the Siwa Oasis and a beautiful Red Sea villa.

Egypt’s Beyond’s hotels, boats and stays

IMMOBILIA

The Cairo bolthole

The electric city of Cairo has its fair share of standard luxury Egypt hotels, with most of the world’s top brands offering a rather samey experience – pleasant, but slightly vanilla. But what it’s been lacking are private city hideaways, filled with character and heritage, in the thick of Cairo life, but offering a luxury service international travellers are accustomed to. Enter IMMOBILIA, Cairo’s first skyscraper dating back to the 1930s. The Art Deco landmark was once home to Golden Era celebrities such as Leila Mourad, Omar Sharif and Kamal El Sheikh, the Hitchcock of Egypt. Now, it offers a collection of utterly unique serviced apartments that provide an authentic Cairene home away from home, floating above the streets of Downtown.

AD100 alumni Zeina Aboukheir, the talent behind Al Moudira Hotel in Luxor (another of Egypt Beyond’s properties) was brought in to reimagine the landmark, creating four new authentic, yet globally-standard luxurious guest suites. Bringing back the glory days experienced at this cultural landmark, where wealthy residents enjoyed a Belle Epoque-esque world with pyramid and Nile views. Aboukheir configured each space to feel like the home of a well-travelled tastemaker. There are cosy one-bedroom to three-bedroom apartments, each retaining its original Art Deco architectural details and filled with historical antiques and art from Cairo’s leading galleries. Design details include Persian rugs, Art Deco furniture, and Ottoman embroidery, with bedding from Malaika Linens and stitching by Threads of Hope, as well as training and employing women in Cairo.

Each apartment has the added luxury of a private landscaped terrace that’s drenched in sunlight with potted greenery and views of Downtown. While giving the feeling of being at home, what really appeals to travellers – and first-time visitors to Cairo – is the team. Guests are looked after by a private chef and the former butler of the American Ambassador. While its concierge offers insider knowledge of and access to the best guides, galleries, and museums, such as offering antique-hunting tours in a vintage Jaguar. A complimentary driver from 9 am – 6 pm also whizzes guests across the city.

Al Moudira

The Luxor Riyadh

A few miles from the bustle of Luxor on the west bank, right near the Valley of the Kings and the site of Ancient Thebes, Al Moudira Hotel shows Luxor in a different light – a light that’s peaceful and old-world, yet contemporary. The hotel itself opened in 2001, built by Italo-Lebanese Zeina Aboukheir, whose eye for antiques crafted a beautiful mini world where Egyptian and French antiques fill rose-hued spaces and outbuildings linked by courtyards and exotic gardens. A chance visit from Cairene lawyer, Florian Amereller, changed its fate in 2018, booking his property out for his wife’s birthday festivities. In 2022, he purchased this beautiful, rural property with plans to bring it into an exciting new era.

The Al Moudira Hotel of today is impossibly glamorous and enchanting, thanks to a feeling and vibe like no other. Its stylish, design-led edge makes it stand-out on these historic banks: fountains, bougainvillaea, antique furniture, knick-knacks, hand-painted frescoes and unique rooms and villas. Al Moudira has just 54 rooms, and all are palatial, ornate and fifty-plus square metres.

Al Moudira’s six villas are a real stand-out, set on the fringes of the property, elevating its quirky boutique hotel feel into a new stratosphere of luxury accommodation. New villas range from two-bedroom bungalows to ‘lofts’, mini townhouses for families with four or five bedrooms -each with its own private pool and lush private gardens. Each has an intriguing name, like Villa Zeina – the former owner’s home for 22 years – and the recently constructed Villa Nubia with its magnificent marble pool. Design is as impeccable – seven-metre high ceilings, mashrabiya, historical photographs, antiques, original art, traditional Suzanis and other textiles, all discovered by founder Zeina Aboukheir during her travels around the Middle East.

For lovers of beautiful things, the property speaks for itself. Still, there’s another real pull which positions it as actually one of the best tourist hotels in the region. Its proximity to some of Egypt’s most famous and visited sights – the bucket-list Valleys of the Kings and Queens – home to the Tomb of Tutankhamun and the majestic Temple of Hatshepsut make it unmissable. The impeccable eye for detail passed down from Aboukheir remains today – seen in the striped pool loungers and Egyptian-favourite board games – played by the pool by chic travellers in floppy hats, or, in the courtyard, with wood-fired pizzas from the old-world bar. The hotel’s buildings surround this central courtyard, designed by London-trained Egyptian architect, Olivier Sednaoui, to include domes, ceilings, murals and plenty of trompe-l’œi. Sednaoui also designed Christian Louboutin’s Luxor home just a few miles away (the designer is smitten with Egypt and also has a Nile houseboat).

Set Nefru

The Nile Dream

People have been drawn to the Nile River and the lush banks surrounding it since time immemorial. Pharaohs built their cities here, entrusting the surrounding mountains with their final resting place, and millennia later, tourists flocked to understand this great civilisation. A Nile adventure conjures images of Agatha Christie and bygone glamour, and Set Nefru – a traditional Egyptian sailing boat with five luxuriously appointed cabins, is taking travellers back to this simple and impossibly glamorous age.

Originally built over ninety years ago for a member of the Egyptian royal family, Set Nefru remained in their service for decades. Relaunched in 2023, the boat is now an extension of Al Moudira Hotel, offering guests an authentic way to extend their travels while experiencing the same level of design and service as at the Luxor property. Would-be sailors can privately hire the boat for groups of their families and embark on three- to seven-day excursions to visit the treasures of the Nile: the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Luxor, Karnak, Medinet Habu, Deir el-Medina and Aswan.

Time is spent leisurely watching the waters of the Nile flow past or seeking respite from the sun in the quaint cabins – their billowing white drapes open straight onto the water. But while the dahabeya retains the traditional and romantic atmosphere of a bygone era, it has all the modern conveniences. There’s WiFi throughout, and luxurious cabins are fitted with the softest Malaika Cairo Egyptian cotton linens and well-appointed private marble bathrooms. Fully staffed, with a private chef on hand, daily fresh bread is delivered, and meals are served on antique Limoges china. A personal trainer, yoga instructor, or historical advisor can also be added to the roster on request. Set Nefru takes guests back in time, enveloping its inhabitants in Egypt’s ancient past and slowing them down to the gentle pace of the Nile itself.

Yalla Nile

The Nile Adventure

‘Let’s go to the Nile’, suggests the moniker of the playfully named ‘Yalla Nile’ – a custom-built 50 metre, two-masted Egyptian riverboat that forms part of Egypt Beyond’s curated new portfolio. The beautiful vessel accommodates up to 12 guests in four junior and two large suites. The luxury boat is the baby of renowned architect Tarek Shamma – known for his work for Christian Louboutin (a Luxor resident) – and is crafted from storied materials like Fawakhir marble, papyrus, alabaster and parchment and furnished by artisans using techniques such as Kilim weaving, Khayameya tapestry and Mashrabiya latticework. A trompe l’oeil tapestry depicting a Nile scene even adorns the primary suite – an illustration by Athan Mytilinaios.

Sailings run from Luxor to Aswan, taking in the majesty of the ancient sultanates while offering contemporary amenities and services, such as a sauna cabin and sundeck with large parasols. A drop-down screen with a projector also sits in one of the bulkheads, so guests can enjoy nostalgic movie nights.

La Maison Bleue El Gouna

The Red Sea retreat

The final jewels in Egypt Beyond’s sparkling collection of unique stays are Adrère Amellal, a hand- built eco-lodge in the heart of the Siwa Oasis, and La Maison Bleue, a pastel-hued folly on the shore of the Red Sea. Both sit away from the country’s most fabled sights and offer another look into Egypt’s tourism landscape – making them the perfect pre-or post-Cairo and Nile stay. Completely unique, Adrère Amellal comprises just 40 rooms made from salt, clay, palm and stone, set across the valley, a turquoise salt lake and a palm-shaded, spring-fed swimming pool.

Sitting on the shores of the fabled waterscape, La Maison Bleue El Gouna is the chicest stay in the artistic haven of El Gouna. The Art Nouveau mansion was envisaged as the seaside holiday home of lifelong friends, Amr Khalil, a renowned antique collector and interior designer, entrepreneur Samih Sawiris, and Olivier Sednaoui, one of Egypt’s most highly regarded contemporary architects. But the trio saw its potential as a way to immerse visitors in El Gouna, and so the space was born. There are just 13 guest suites, blending influences from Byzantium to ancient Greece: think marble floors inspired by St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, replica Minoan murals from Santorini, nods to the Italian empire and Art Deco furniture.

Public spaces and rooms alike are dressed in a palette of rich materials, exceptional hand-collected antiques, notable artworks and dazzling crystal chandeliers. Landscape artist Louis Benech was hired to turn the mansion into a verdant escape, building its marble-lined pool and saltwater lagoon and restoring fragrant Egyptian flora. Executive chef Vincent Guillou oversees an elegant farm-to-table menu led by Egypt’s seasons. It’s the perfect spot for a relaxing coastal escape, boutique stay, or even a wedding or special event with loved ones (its reception rooms and outdoors can host up to 250 guests).

La Maison Bleue is the gateway to El Gouna, with its Red Sea pursuits like boating, diving, snorkelling, sunbathing and dolphin spotting. Multiple golf courses are nearby, and guests can also enjoy activities like lagoon sightseeing and horseriding.

All stays can be booked through egyptbeyond.com, by emailing [email protected] or Whatsapping +971 50 122 0568; @egypt_beyond

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