El Quseir Fort

About this place

An Ottoman fort in the old coastal town of El Quseir, built in the late sixteenth century on the advice of Sinan Pasha to guard the town and the pilgrims who sailed from here to the Hejaz, for Quseir was among the Red Sea's most important pilgrim and trading ports. The fort has an eventful past: Napoleon's army occupied it in the late eighteenth century and held out against a British naval siege, the French then rebuilt parts of it, and the Egyptian army used it afterwards. Today it is a small museum where you walk among its stone walls, towers and old cannons, while its rooms tell the story of Quseir, the pilgrimage and trade route and Bedouin life in the Eastern Desert. From its walls there is a view over the old town, its mosques and the sea. A foreign visitor's ticket costs about a hundred Egyptian pounds according to the ministry list, and it opens from nine to five. The old town around it, with its historic houses and wooden balconies, is worth a stroll, and it can be visited on the way between Hurghada and Marsa Alam.