Mansoura is a major Nile Delta city with two moments of military glory separated by seven centuries. In 1250, Egyptian forces defeated the Seventh Crusade here, capturing Louis IX of France and ending the last serious Crusader attempt to take Egypt. In October 1973, Egyptian air force pilots shot down seventeen Israeli aircraft over the city in a single engagement, the most celebrated air battle of the Yom Kippur War. Neither victory gets much attention from the outside world, which suits Mansoura just fine.
Set on the Damietta branch of the Nile roughly halfway between Cairo and the Mediterranean, Mansoura is a working Delta city of around two million people. It has one of Egypt's largest universities, a corniche lined with evening strollers, and a covered market that still smells of brass and spices. Very few foreign tourists make it here, which means you get the place largely to yourself.
The historic centre rewards a slow walk. Dar Ibn Luqman, where the captured French king was held, is now a small museum. The Shinnawi Palace, designed by an Italian architect in 1928, is among the finest early-twentieth-century mansions in Egypt. The Touryel district preserves a run of villas built by wealthy cotton merchants during Egypt's boom years, their facades mixing Italian, French, and local styles in cheerful disorder. The Al-Khawagat market, once run by the city's Greek, Jewish, and Lebanese communities, is still one of the liveliest in the Delta.
Mansoura is not a destination that hands itself to you. There are no tour groups and few signs in English. But the city is friendly, the food is good, and the Nile at dusk is as fine here as anywhere in Egypt.