EasyJet's twice-weekly summer service to the Egyptian resort of Hurghada has just got under way, with departures on Mondays and Friday from Gatwick. However, holidaymakers who board the service and then head downtown on arrival are in for a shock. If they expect the traditional Red Sea mix of luxury hotels on the waterfront with a hinterland of tourist bars and bazaars, they're in the wrong place: Hurghada functions as a community in its own right.
Its traditional city centre, Dahar, is far more Egyptian β proper market, bazaars and shisha cafes β than the rather sterile international resorts over on the Sinai peninsula such as Sharm El Sheikh.
And, unlike Sharm, its day-to-day existence is comparatively unchanged by recent events. There has always been a certain amount of rivalry between the Red Sea resorts of Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada, but the latter is in no way envious of Sharm's most recent high-profile acquisition. After leaving office, ex-President Mubarak went to ground in his luxury villa in this prominent holiday spot, although last week he was moved to a military hospital near Cairo with heart problems.
When Mubarak was in power, he bestowed an enviable prestige on Sharm, and his high-ranking fellow politicians as well as our own Tony Blair also patronised the resort.
But following Egypt's ousting of the old guard, the resort now has all the wrong associations. Furthermore its downtown areas around Shark's Bay the location of the Mubarak villa are now bristling with security, which is not exactly conducive to a holiday atmosphere. What's more, Mubarak isn't the only big fish to have darkened Sharm's doors recently.
