Old Cataract

HISTORY IN BRIEF

1900: Opening year.

HISTORY IN DETAIL

1899: The hotel was constructed. It was the brainchild of Thomas Cook, the world’s first tour operator, who wanted a base to put up tourists taking part in his Nile cruises, hugely popular at the tail end of the 19th century.

1900, January: The hotel opened its doors. Allegedly The Cataract was so popular in the months after it opened that the management had to pitch tents on the hotel grounds to cope with the demand.

The Egyptian Gazette reported on 3 January 1900: "Much has been said lately of the building and opening of new palatial and magnificent hotels, all eager to cater for the accommodation of the tourists who flock to Egypt each winter in their thousands. Still another worthy of mention is fast approaching completion and is soon to be thrown open to the public. Mr Pagnon expects to be able to open the Cataract Hotel at Assouan on the 8th and judging from the number of rooms already engaged and the way others are being booked there is every reason to believe the hotel will open with from 80 to 100 guests. The building –or rather two thirds of it – has been finished some time, and men are now actively engaged in laying in the electric light installations, furnishing the spacious rooms and saloons, and putting on the hundred and one finishing touches."

It was followed by a story, also in the Gazette, on the 11 January 1900 concerning a dinner held at the Cataract along with an ad for the hotel.

1978: The hotel stars in the Hollywood version of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile, starring Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot.

2010: the hotel undergoes extensive renovations.

Prominent visitors to The Old Cataract include Howard Carter, who found Tutankhamen's tomb, Sir Winston Churchill, Agatha Christie, Czar Nicolas II, Lady Diana and Jimmy Carter.

Have you seen the classic Hollywood production of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile? The one starring Peter Ustinov, Jane Birkin, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury and David Niven? If so, you'll recognise the terrace and Moorish ballroom of The Old Cataract, where part of the drama unfolds.

Death on the Nile (1978), directed by John Guillermin

Antoane Louhgouno
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Ramsis Shaker