Heliopolis Palace Hotel Lap of luxury
Heliopolis Palace Hotel Lap of luxury Milad Zaky It looks like Baron Edouard Louis Joseph Empain might have been reading into the future when, at the outset of the 20th century, he thought of transforming a barren area 10 kilometres from the centre of Cairo into a lively residential district full of greenery. With the city becoming increasingly cramped for its inhabitants, the idea was to establish a pleasant suburb. Belgian entrepreneur Edouard Empain raised an enormous sum of money from across Europe and filed a request to the Egyptian government for a franchise for a new suburb called Heliopolis after the ancient Egyptian city that once stood nearby. Legendary Arab palace Within a few years Heliopolis was full of life. Its palaces and villas were unrivalled, and moreover it was linked to the centre of Cairo via a metropolitan railway line. One of the most prominent features of the suburb was the Heliopolis Palace Hotel, described by foreign visitors of the tim...