Massawa Hot Springs

Massawa Hot Springs are found in Massawa, the historic Red Sea port city of Eritrea and one of the oldest continuously inhabited ports in the world, whose location on a pair of coral islands connected to the mainland by causeways has made it a hub of Red Sea trade for at least three millennia, occupied by Ottoman Turks from 1557, by Egypt in the 19th century, by Italy as the capital of Italian Eritrea from 1885 to 1941, and finally the scene of fierce fighting during Eritrea's 30-year independence war (1961-1991), during which the city suffered severe destruction from Ethiopian bombardment. The remarkable layering of Ottoman, Egyptian, and Italian colonial architecture — most of it still standing despite war damage, in various states of preservation — makes Massawa one of the most architecturally fascinating Red Sea ports, an open-air museum of African-Indian Ocean colonial history concentrated on its tiny historic island core. The hot springs here draw on geothermal activity associated with the Red Sea Rift, which continues to widen as the Arabian Peninsula separates from Africa, providing bicarbonate mineral bathing in one of the Red Sea's most historically resonant coastal settings.