Safaga, or Port Safaga (Bur Safaga) is a
working port located 37 miles from Safaga with several tourist villages
specializing in diving holidays, a handful of hotels and some excellent fish
restaurants. Its unspoiled beaches and stiff breezes made it the ideal venue for
the 1993 World Windsurfing Championships. Day trips to Tobia Island or Mons
Claudianus in the Red Sea Mountains can be arranged with local guides
Mons
Claudianus is at the foot of Jebel Fatira, located about 30 miles
from Port Safaga just of the Qena road. This was a Roman Penal Colony of
substance, where Quartzy diorite, a high quality granite, was mined as building
materials for the Roman Empire. This black stone can still be seen in Rome in
the portico of the Pantheon, in Hadrian's Villa, and public baths and in the
columns and floor of the Temple of Venus. A temple begun by Hadrian but never
finished is in ruins, but the staircase leading to it can still be seen. There
is also a Roman camp, dwellings, workshops, stables and a dromos. The camp is
surrounded by granite walls with rounded defense towers on the corners, to
protect it from Bedouin attacks. There are hot springs today, which where used
in a complex underground heating system for the sweating baths. The actual
quarries are on the opposite side of the wadi. There are fragments of granite,
with several ruined artifacts such as a broken column and column slab