El Quseir
The Red Sea Port The Hajj Sailed From For Three Hundred Years, And The Only Town On This Coast With A History Older Than The Resorts: A Restored Ottoman Fortress, A Quarter Of Coral Block Houses And Italian Phosphate Era Buildings, A Working Fishing Harbour, And Reefs Offshore That Nobody Has Built A Strip In Front Of · El Quseir, Red Sea
El Quseir is the only town on Egypt's Red Sea coast with a history older than the hotels. For three hundred years under the Ottomans this was the port that Egyptian and North African pilgrims sailed from for Mecca, and before that the Romans and the pharaohs used the same stretch for the Punt trade and the Eastern Desert quarries; the road inland through Wadi Hammamat to Qift on the Nile is one of the oldest used routes on earth. What survives is small and real: a restored Ottoman fortress above the harbour, a quarter of coral-block houses with wooden balconies, Italian buildings from the phosphate years, a working fishing harbour and a handful of low-key dive hotels along the shore. It sits a hundred and forty kilometres south of Hurghada and a hundred and thirty north of Marsa Alam, with reefs offshore that nobody has built a strip in front of, and it belongs to neither resort coast - which is precisely the reason to stop.
On the Red Sea coast 140 km south of Hurghada and 130 km north of Marsa Alam, with the Ottoman fort above the harbour, El Quseir, Red Sea, Egypt
The Ottoman fortress above the harbour keeps daylight hours with a small ticket and a museum inside, and WHETHER THE MUSEUM IS OPEN HAS VARIED, so ask in town. The old quarter, the harbour and the shore are open ground at any hour and the harbour is at its best when the boats come in. Dive centres at the hotels along the coast run morning and afternoon boats and shore dives, and because the reefs here are close in, shore diving is the normal arrangement rather than the exception. There is no airport: Hurghada is two hours north by road and Marsa Alam about an hour and a half south, both with direct European flights, and buses run the coast road between them. The inland road through Wadi Hammamat to Qift and Luxor is about four hours and is a genuine desert crossing rather than a shortcut.