Hurghada by the Red Sea
Hurghada was founded in the early 20th century, and until recently it was a small fishing village. But since the 1980s it has become the leading coastal resort on the Red Sea. Hurghada is known for its water sports activities, nightlife and warm weather. Holiday resorts and hotels provide aquatic sport facilities for windsurfers, kite surfers, yachtsmen, scuba divers and snorkelers. Daily temperature hovers round 30 °C most of the year, during July and August temperatures reach over 40 °C. Many Europeans head to Hurghada for their regular holidays, especially during the winter season.
During our stay in Hurghada in 2005, we took a 3-day tour to Cairo.
2005-02 – Magawish Village Hotel
Magawish Village Hotel is located in Villages Road district about 7 kilometers from the airport. Our room was very ordinary without a sea view. The restaurant had lots of good food, but always a queue to the buffet.
It was a rather cold wind, and the sea was colder than expected. During our week we joined a dive boat to the reef one day, and being away in Cairo for 3 days we only had a couple of days to spend on the beach anyway. We also took a glass-bottom boat cruise over the corals in the bay outside the hotel.
2005-02 – Evening tour to Hurghada City
We took the hotel’s minibus to the Hurghada city center and walked along the main street.
Hurghada was founded in the early 20th century, and until recently it was a small fishing village, but since the 1980 it has been continually enlarged by Egyptian and foreign investors to become the leading coastal resort on the Red Sea. Hurghada stretches for about 36 kilometres along the seashore, and it does not reach far into the surrounding desert. Today Hurghada counts 248,000 inhabitants.
2005-02 – Diving on a reef outside Hurghada
Dive sites are found around Abu Ramada Island, Fanadir, Giftun Kebir, and Giftun Soraya. There are shipwrecks in the area such as the El Mina or the Rosalie Moller.
We booked a tour with dives from the dive center at the Magawish Hotel.
2005-02 – Take-off from Hurghada Airport
Hurghada International Airport is located inland, 5 km southwest of El Dahar, the downtown of Hurghada. It is the second busiest airport in Egypt after Cairo International Airport and an important destination for leisure flights mainly from Europe.