El Gouna - "Little Venice" of Egypt
El Gouna - "Little Venice" of Egypt
Often answering questions about what to see in Egypt, I noticed that there is very little information about El Gouna in Turpravda.
But on our first visit to Egypt, we had a lot of time - as many as 14 days and we saw a lot of Egypt on excursions. But in order.
Back in 2008, in winter, the children made us a present for my and my wife's birthdays - a trip to Egypt for as much as 14 days. It was a trip to Hurghada, King Tut Hotel. The Sphinx had not yet been built; construction was also going on on the right side of our hotel. Egypt untwisted the tourist business. As always, upon arrival, they tried to tell us about the “gentle” hands of the travel agency hosting us, what cool excursions they offer, just pay. We did not fall for this, took their prices and left for the center of Hurghada, to check the prices of local travel agencies. "We" is the formed company of the Cossacks of 7 people.
We walked through travel agencies (naturally, women could not miss the shops), stopped at a travel agency (the name has already disappeared from memory), where we were treated very kindly, treated to tea with local sweets. We bargained, of course. The result - as a group of 7 people, and also that they took more than one excursion, the discount turned out to be one free excursion for us - on a yacht with a transparent day. There we took an excursion to El Gouna. Full day excursion with a stop at sea on coral reefs, with fishing and lunch.
Some official data. - El Gu? Na (Arabic ?????? ? ? ) is a tourist resort on the Red Sea coast, located 22 km north of Hurghada International Airport, and is known as the "Pearl of the Red Sea" or "Venice in the Sands".
The resort is located between the waters of the Red Sea and the Etbay mountain range.
El Gouna is operated by Orascom Development, owned by Egyptian billionaire Samih Sawiris. All the hotels and buildings of the resort of El Gouna are located on small islands, interconnected by bridges through channels through which boats ply. The resort has beaches, hotels and golf courses. Activities include yachting, fishing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, water skiing and diving.
So, as the guide said, this billionaire Sami Sawiris, knocked out a piece of desert on the Red Sea coast for a small bribe from the Egyptian government, hired Egyptians for little money, who manually dug canals in El Gouna, ennobled the territory, and then handed it all over to rent for the construction of hotels. An interesting fact is that this Sami started his business on the collection and processing of garbage in Egypt.
The resort of El Gouna has its own infrastructure, even an airport and a small Aquarium with local underwater inhabitants. The resort is guarded around the clock.
Our excursion began with loading us into a minivan, which brought us to the yacht port of Hurghada, then to a comfortable yacht and we sailed north along the coast of Hurghada. Before us was a panorama of hotels in Hurghada, also under the water were coral reefs. The yacht goes to Hurghada, beggars fly after us - seagulls, on the fly grabbing pieces of the cakes we have stocked up.
The island was the first to appear along the course of the yacht, where there were only the apartments of Sami Sawiris himself, then we entered the lagoon. We were transferred to a motor boat and dropped off in the center of El Gouna, where all the infrastructure of El Gouna is located. We toured the Aquarium. It shows the flora and fauna of the Red Sea quite well.
Then again in a motor boat and we sailed along the channels under the bridges past hotels of various types and categories, some stood on the islands themselves, some had bungalows on stilts in the water, there were many green golf courses. I will post all of this in pictures.
The resort is very clean, the guide said that the hotels are mostly 5 * and everything is done so that nothing interferes with the rest of the moneybags. I doubt that there are youth hangouts.
The tour of El Gouna ends, we are waiting for lunch on a yacht, coral reefs in the open sea and fishing. Lunch was not bad, the crew of the yacht entertained us, who could and wanted to swim among the fish and divers (their yacht was nearby). For fishing we were given a line with hooks, people who wanted to, began to throw these gear into the water. I think they all caught one fish. And now the evening, we are at the pier, the minivan takes us to the hotels, the tour was a success
