Baron Empain Palace

Rising incongruously from a Heliopolis boulevard, the Baron Empain Palace is one of Cairo's most striking and mysterious buildings, a Hindu-temple-inspired mansion built in the early 1900s for the Belgian industrialist who helped found the suburb itself. Modelled loosely on Cambodian and Indian temples, its concrete tower bristles with carved elephants, serpents, dancers and deities, unlike anything else in the city.

For decades it stood abandoned, fuelling local legends of hauntings, secret tunnels and a rotating room, its decay only deepening the mystique. A recent restoration has reopened it as a museum charting the history of Heliopolis, letting visitors finally explore its grand rooms and rooftop. It remains hauntingly beautiful, a piece of Belle Époque fantasy that captures the cosmopolitan ambitions of early modern Cairo.