Mansoura
Founded As A Camp To Hold The Delta Against The Fifth Crusade And Named 'The Victorious' For What Happened Next: In 1250 A French Army Was Destroyed Outside The Walls And Louis IX Was Taken Prisoner, And The House He Was Held In Still Stands On The Corniche As A Museum. Now A University City With One Of The Pleasantest River Fronts In The Delta · Mansoura, Dakahlia
Mansoura means the victorious, and it was named that for a reason. The town was thrown up in 1219 as a fortified camp to stop the Fifth Crusade from pushing up the Nile, and thirty-one years later a second French army came the same way: in 1250 it was destroyed outside these walls, and Louis IX of France - later Saint Louis - was taken prisoner. The house he was held in still stands on the corniche as Dar Ibn Luqman, a small museum, which makes this one of the very few places in Egypt where a famous European event happened and is commemorated on the spot. Nobody goes. Mansoura today is a big Delta university city on the Damietta branch, with one of the pleasantest river fronts in the country, a nineteenth-century centre, a cotton-and-textile economy and a student population that gives the corniche its evening character. There is no tourism here at all, which is both the drawback and the point.
On the Damietta branch of the Nile 120 km north of Cairo, with the Dar Ibn Luqman museum on the corniche, Mansoura, Dakahlia, Egypt
Dar Ibn Luqman keeps daylight hours with a small ticket when it is open, and WHETHER IT IS OPEN HAS VARIED - it has been closed for restoration for long stretches, and it is the main reason most visitors would come, so ask before travelling for it specifically. The corniche along the Damietta branch is open at all hours, free, and at its best in the evening when the city walks it. The old centre's nineteenth-century streets and the market are ordinary working parts of the city rather than sites, with no hours and no tickets. Mansoura is 120 km north of Cairo on the main Delta rail line, about two hours by train, and 70 km south-west of Damietta; trains and buses are frequent and a car is unnecessary within the city, which is walkable along the river.