Hurghada

Hurghada was founded in the early 20th century, and until a few years ago, remained a small fishing village. But today, it has gone on to become the foremost tourist resort of the Red Sea coast and an international center for aquatic sports. If it takes place in or on the water you can do it here: windsurfing, sailing, deep-sea fishing, swimming, but, above all, snorkeling and diving.

Hurghada is a city in the Red Sea Governorate of Egypt. It is a main tourist center and second largest city (after Suez) in Egypt located on the Red Sea coast.

The city was founded in the early 20th century, and since the 1980s has been continually enlarged by Egyptian and foreign investors to become the leading seashore resort on the Red Sea. Holiday villages and hotels provide aquatic sport facilities for sailboarders, yachtsmen, scuba divers and snorkelers.

Hurghada stretches for about 36 kilometres (22 mi) along the seashore, and it does not reach far into the surrounding desert. The resort is a destination for Egyptian tourists from Cairo, the Delta and Upper Egypt, as well as package holiday tourists from Europe, notably Serbs, Italians, Russians, Poles, Czechs and Germans. Until a few years ago it was a small fishing village. Today Hurghada counts 248,000 inhabitants and is divided into three parts: Downtown (El Dahar) is the old part; Sekalla is the city center, and El Memsha (Village road) is the modern part. Sakalla is the relatively modest hotel quarter. Dahar is where the town's largest bazaar, the post office and the long-distance bus station are situated.

The city is served by the Hurghada International Airport with scheduled passenger traffic to and from Cairo and direct connections with several cities in Europe. The airport has undergone massive renovations to accommodate rising traffic. Hurghada is known for its watersports activities, nightlife and warm weather. Daily temperature hovers round 30 degrees celsius most of the year. Numerous Europeans spend their Christmas and New Year holidays in the city, primarily Germans, Russians and Italians.

Hurghada has a subtropical-desert climate (Köppen climate classification Bwh), with mild-warm winters and hot to very hot summers. The summer season lasts year round. Temperatures in the period December–January–February are moderately warm, while November, March and April – comfortably warm. May and October is hot and the period from June to September is very hot. Sunshine hours are around 3,800 per year (one of the highest results in the world), from average 9 hours of sunshine / day in December to average 13 hours in July. Average annual temperature of sea is 24 °C (75 °F), from 21 °C (70 °F) in February and March to 28 °C (82 °F) in August.