Quseir city

The first history of Quseir date back to the region of Queen Hatshepsut   in the fifteen century B.C  . Hatshepsut used this port town then called   thagho as a base to lunch her famous maritime expedition to the rich lands of Punt believed to be in modern days Ethiopia or Somalia , punt was also known as a place of great spiritual significance and a trade partner of ancient Egypt .In the centuries that followed, Quseir was known as Leukos Limen or White Harbor , and was a major trading port in the vast Roman Empire . After the Arab conquers arriaved in Egypt , this Red Sea town played a vital role in the pilgrimage route to Mecca and it was the Arab who gave the city its recent name .According to the locals the word quseir is the shortening of qasser which refers to a short road between Quseir and the Nile Valley . The Ottoman Sultan Selim built the Quseir fort to protect the vital trading  port and ensure safety to the thousands Muslims passing through for pilgrimage   

Couple of centuries later, French emperor napoleon Bonaparte recognized the strategic importance of Quseir determined tocapture the town, the French conqueror sent his warships in an attempt to take the port from the sea as the  winds blew stronger, the four ships got a little too close to the fort, close enough to be within its cannon rang ,and in no time the French fleet was sent to the bottom of the red sea , five months later, in may1799 Bonaparte made anther attempt to capture Qusier, sending general Augustine Daniel belliad ,along with 350 soldiers and 400 camels to take the port from the land this time Qusier fell. The French residence in the port was short and turbulent; in august that same year  British warships heavily bombard the fort Qusier fort was later resort  during the rule  of Mohamed Ali Basha, who used it as abase for his military campaign against the wahhabis in the  Hejaz in present day Saudi Arabia in the first half of the 1800s

After Mohamed Ali Basha Hejaz campaign the martial chapters of the Qusier history were finished for good and again the red sea port resumed the  role as a key link between the occident and the orient. Those golden days were brief ;when the railroad connecting  Suez to Cairo opened in 1850, traders and pilgrims began to use the much more easily accessible port in Suez .then a famine in1864salshed Qusier`s population from a prosperous 8,000 to a mere 800.the final blow came in 1869,when the Suez canal opened, rendering the tiny port obsolete as a trading town.

All was not lost for little Qusier, as the Italian red sea phosphate company started investing in the town and the rounding area .the Italians brought with them not only money and gobs ,but also a touch of    renaissance style took astral through the streets of the older parts of town and enjoy the charming architecture .then head to the Coptic orthodox church of the virgin Mary built by the Italian company for its miners, it was originally named after saint Barbara ,the protector of the mines with the mining days long over ,Qusier is extending an eco-friendly welcome to tourism, especially in the area of the diving .Reefs are precious, and a place like Qusier, they are the magnet that brings in the diving crowd. it take one hundred years for coral to grow just one square centimeter so locale official  and dive centers have initialed a number of regulations and programs to protect the red sea marine life.

For example, boats are not allowed to drop anchor in nearby Marsa Abu Dabbab, which is a natural habitat for the resident dugong ,also known as the sea  cow  because of its size, docile nature and vegetarian diet, the dugong is one of the most strangely beautiful, yet   endangered ,marine mammals in the world.

But Quseir is not only for divers and history buffs ; the town also has  a souq for those must buy trinkets. And the year round beautiful weather makes this quiet town a relaxing   waterfront break on your tour of Upper Egypt.