Dec 11, 2012
Since 2007 between end November beginning December I am spending 2 weeks in Hurghada, Egypt at the Red Sea. It had been long ago a little fisher town, until since the 1980s some clever investors discovered that this would be an ideal place for the sun hungry Europeans !
The weather is very warm. Daily temperature hovers round 30°C (86 F) most of the year. The sea is of a limpid blue and warm, Holiday villages and hotels provide aquatic sport facilities for sailboarders, yachtsmen, scuba divers and snorkelers. It's a real paradise for holidays of all kinds.
Very luxurious palace like hotels were built and lots of others there is a huge choice.
The city center looks very nice especially when it is dark with all the lights, the open shops and people enjoying sitting outside in the warm evening. During the day you see things which are not so good, need to be repaired or just look neglected. All this is gone when it's getting dark.
For more posh people there is the habor called "Marine" where huge yachts are ankered and you can walk through marble covered shopping galleries beautifully decorated. There are also lots of elegant restaurants and bars along the seafront. There it is so clean that you could almost eat from the floor.
photo taken at night
and one from Internet
I had never seen the mosque Aldahaar Mosqueit which was only finished 2 years ago. It can contain 3000 people that's at least what our taxi driver told us, although I doubt that it will ever be filled up ! But lots of tourists are visiting it, apparently it is very beautiful from inside.
Everywhere when it's possible to grow something there are also nice sculptures
New houses are built, everywhere too, those which are finished have all a satellite dish on the roof.
It is very hard to build something in this rocky soil, before there was nothing here but the desert.
but new buildings are growing like mushrooms
While we were driven to the airport I could take pictures of streets and houses, where usually no tourists go. These are middle class houses or flats I suppose.
The narrow streets are full with shops or workshops of all kind
People seem to be quiet happy here in this area, thanks to the tourisme, there is enough food for everybody and the actual political fights in Cairo seem very far away. They are also very friendly and not hostile against strangers. At least I have never heard of any bad incident.
Official buildings are very well taken care of and look very good, to western standards.
There is also western publicity, western movies and I haven't seen one single picture of the new president Morsi. In my opinion he is not very much appreciated in this area. People fear for their freedom. I talked to a few Egyptians and had this impression.
Approaching the airport I saw this monument
We also drove by a military zone, which was partly nicely hidden by this beautiful wall sculptered painting.
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