Damietta and Ras El Bar

The Nile'S Eastern Mouth, Besieged Twice By Crusading Armies In The Thirteenth Century And Fought Over For The Same Reason Rosetta Was Whoever Held It Held The Delta. Today It Is Egypt'S Furniture City, With An Ottoman Old Quarter, And At Ras El Bar You Can Stand On A Spit A Few Metres Wide With The River On One Side And The Sea On The Other · Damietta, Damietta

Damietta guards the Nile's eastern mouth, and for the same reason Rosetta mattered on the western one, armies kept coming for it. A crusading fleet took it in 1218 and lost it again; Louis IX landed here in 1249 and was a prisoner within months. The town that survives is an Ottoman merchant port of tall brick houses and a timber trade that became, improbably, Egypt's furniture industry - workshops on every other street turning out carved bedroom suites for the whole country. Twelve kilometres north the river finally reaches the sea at Ras El Bar, a long sandy spit a few hundred metres wide with the Mediterranean on one side and the Nile on the other, and a promenade out to the point where the two meet and the water visibly changes colour. It is a domestic summer resort, packed in July and shuttered by October, and standing on that spit is the reason to make the trip at all, whatever the season has done to the rest of the town.

At the eastern mouth of the Nile, with Ras El Bar on the spit where the river meets the Mediterranean 12 km north, Damietta, Damietta, Egypt

No single site and no hours - a working port city and a seasonal resort. RAS EL BAR IS A SUMMER TOWN: it fills with Egyptian families from June to September and shuts almost completely from October, so arriving in winter means an empty promenade and closed chalets, which is pleasant if that is what you came for and a disappointment otherwise. The spit walkway out to the point is open ground and is rebuilt after storms, so whether the full length is passable varies. In Damietta the Ottoman quarter is streets rather than monuments and whether any house is enterable depends on finding somebody; the furniture workshops are businesses and will generally let you watch. Damietta is 200 km north of Cairo and 70 east of Mansoura, with trains and buses to the city and a short taxi out to Ras El Bar.

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