The Garden Ran Down to the Nile

When Thomas Cook opened restrictions to the Nile Valley in 1860, only a handful of travellers had previously ventured into this unknown country of unseen landscapes whilst en route to India. Egypt soon became an essential stop in the itinerary of the Grand Tour, often preserved in history by the literary archaeology of those travellers. It was easy to imagine them sitting comfortably in the reading saloons of the fashionable hotels or reclining in wicker chairs on the decks of their dahabeyahs as they drifted leisurely up the Nile, writing with a flourish their colourful descriptions, without the use of brevity. In the late 1970s, the atmosphere of a vanished era was still in evidence in the European buildings and the few remaining grand hotels of the belle epoque. Today vintage Egypt has all but disappeared under a cloud of technology and a new generation of modern Egyptians. Yet with all the changes that have taken place throughout the country, it is still possible to relive the charm of a golden era.