Villa Belle Epoque

arguably the only boutique hotel in Cairo

Set within the suburb of Maadi, on the south side of Cairo, Belle Epoque is the closest that the city gets to a quality boutique hotel.

The Maadi area is often described as ‘upmarket’ and ‘leafy’. Certainly there are lots of embassies here and many of the streets are lined with trees, but it’s probably best not to set your hopes too high.

Belle Epoque is contained within a large colonial villa, set on a relatively tight plot, encircled by other buildings. Nevertheless, there is space for some nice planting, outdoor dining and a swimming pool.

The ground floor contains some pleasant public areas. Around a dozen guest rooms are arranged across the first and second floors, most with separate lounge areas and small balconies.

In the adjacent plum-coloured building, a further dozen rooms serve as decent options when the main house is full.

As we intimated at the top, this is not a truly top class boutique hotel, but it is a good approximation and outstanding by local standards. We particularly enjoyed the friendly staff and high quality food.

However, given the incredible shortage of good accommodation options in the Cairo area, this imperfect solution may be the best alternative.

If you would prefer to avoid the corporate nature of the larger hotels, yet cannot handle the downsides of Le Riad in the Old City, then Belle Epoque is a pleasant and reliable base from which to explore.

The traffic in Cairo is famously crazy, partly in terms of jams, but mainly in the crazy way that the locals drive. You will need to endure this during your stay, it is an integral part of the experience, for better or for worse.

We usually recommend three nights at the front end of a trip in Giza, which gives you a full day for each of the two pyramid areas of Giza and Saqqara. If you subsequently head south to Luxor on the overnight train, then you can cut this to two nights in Cairo.

If you specifically want to explore the Old City, then we usually include a night at the end of a trip, when guests have had some time to toughen up and after which you will have a long flight to catch up on the terrible night’s sleep you will most likely have experienced.

Seasonality

The best time to visit Cairo is widely considered to be the winter months of Nov-Mar, but we sometimes favour other times of year, when temperatures may be higher, but visitor numbers are often much lower.

Cairo experiences a conventional northern hemisphere climate, with a hot dry summer centred on May-Sep and a warm dry winter Nov-Mar.

May-Sep : Summer

During the May-Sep summer the daytime temperatures typically reach 41C, with night-time temperatures holding up around 23C. Although these temperatures may seem concerning, the relative humidity drops considerably, meaning that comfort temperatures are not so bad, at least during the day. This season can also be advantaged by light summer breezes out on the river. However, given the warm nights, we do recommend that you stay somewhere with air-conditioning.

Despite being ‘out of season’, visitor numbers do increase during the European vacation season, centred on Jul/Aug, so best to head for May, June or late September if you can.

Some hotel prices can also be considerably lower during some of these months.

Oct : Autumn

The month of October represents a transition between summer and winter conditions and, in many ways, offers the best of both worlds, with visitor traffic also being relatively low.

Nov-Mar : Winter

During the Nov-Mar winter the daytime temperatures typically reach 25C, with nighttime temperatures plunging to 8C. Relatively humidities rise considerably, meaning that the middle of the day can be surprisingly uncomfortable, given the relatively low absolute temperatures.

These warm (rather than hot) conditions have led to winter being the most popular time to visit, meaning that visitor numbers reach their peak, especially around Dec-Jan. We therefore recommend November to mid-December and mid-January to March (excluding a week either side of Easter), although even then you probably need to deploy traffic avoidance measures when visiting the key sites.

Some hotel prices can also be considerably higher during some of these months.

Apr : Spring

The month of April represents a transition between winter and summer conditions and, in many ways, offers the best of both worlds, with visitor traffic also being relatively low (except for a week either side of Easter.

Getting there

Set about 20 km east of the city centre, Cairo Airport is one of the busiest in the world.

It has good international flight connections with Europe, Asia and Africa. Connections to the Americas are rather more spartan, with only Egyptair offering regular non-stop flights to North America (notably New York and Washington). Most people either take these services, or fly via London or Frankfurt.

From the airport, the city centre can be reached in 20-40 minutes, depending on traffic. Giza and Saqqara are usually more like 40-60 minutes.

We only recommend private-guided transfers. The local taxi drivers can be a bit challenging to deal with.

a viable alternative to the large hotels in the Giza area