Guaranteed departure - Forts, Dunes & the Coast - 4 nights / 5 days

Day 1: Ahlan Wa Sahlan, Welcome To Oman

Arrival at Muscat International Airport, where you meet your English-speaking guide and set out to discover the capital. The short drive in gives you a first impression of a green, well-kept city. Muscat is an orderly, spotless place, an easy meeting of tradition and modernity, held between a maze of rolling mountains on one side and the blue water of the Arabian Sea on the other. It has grown enormously over the past two or three decades and has kept its pride in its own culture and traditions entirely intact. The day opens at the Grand Mosque, an architectural work of great value and now the symbol of the city. The programme continues through the ministries district, where a run of modern buildings carries touches of Islamic architecture, and on to the Royal Opera House, the leading arts and cultural institution of the Sultanate. The Opera Galleria inside it holds some fifty shops of art, jewellery, fashion and perfume. The day carries on to the fishing village of Sidab, in the old part of town, where we meet the Sidab Women’s Sewing Group, a non-profit community organisation inspired and run by local women that helps the women of the village build sewing skills and earn an income. Then into Muttrah Souq, through narrow lanes and colourful stalls where you will find spices, coffee, traditional medicines and perfumed essences. We finish in the old city with the Bait Al Zubair Museum, a real window on Oman’s cultural heritage, and a photo stop at Al Alam Palace, flanked and protected by the two Portuguese forts of Mirani and Jalali. Transfer to the hotel and check-in. Dinner and overnight at the hotel. Grand Mosque: visitors are admitted Saturday to Thursday, 08:00 to 11:00. Women are asked to cover shoulders, knees and hair, men to wear long trousers. The Sidab Women’s Sewing Group is closed on Friday and Saturday.

Day 2: Majestic Forts And Mountain Villages

After breakfast, meet your guide at the hotel at 08:30 and head inland. Oman’s forts and castles are the proudest expression of a long cultural tradition. Together with the watchtowers and city walls they served for centuries as defensive strongholds and lookout points, and more than five hundred of them still stand across the country. We begin at Jabreen Castle, built as a defensive stronghold and considered today the most elegant of them all: a surprising run of corridors, secret passages, prisons and rooms with decorated ceilings, Islamic inscriptions, frescoes and finely carved doors. The drive continues with a photo stop at Bahla Fort, a UNESCO World Heritage site: an oasis ringed by mud walls whose prosperity came from the Banu Nebhan tribe, who made Bahla their capital from the twelfth to the late fifteenth century. We then board a 4x4 and climb towards Jebel Shams, the Mountain of the Sun, at 3,010 metres the highest peak in Oman. The off-road route crosses the western Hajar mountains and passes the terraced farming village of Wadi Ghul, where weavers still make heavy wool rugs in black, red and brown geometric patterns. We come down to Al Hamra, at the foot of the mountains, where people still live in mud houses built four hundred years ago, and reach Misfat Al Abriyeen for a walk through the lanes of a village whose rich agriculture is fed by the falaj irrigation system. Change from the 4x4 back to a standard vehicle for the road to Nizwa. Dinner and overnight at the hotel.

Day 3: Nizwa And The Wahiba Dunes

After breakfast we go straight to the heart of the tradition with Nizwa Fort and its Souq. The seventeenth-century round tower, built on solid rock and designed to absorb the shock of twenty-four cannon, and the souq with its fine silver jewellery are the town’s great draws. Today’s route crosses the contrasting geography of the Sultanate, from desert to oasis to wadi. We pass through Ibra and the first of the extraordinary dunes begin to rise out of the plain: here the sand reaches the gates of the farms, and a narrow belt marks the boundary between nomadic and settled life. We board 4x4 vehicles for the drive in to the tented camp. Around three thousand Bedouin herders live in the Omani desert today, raising mainly goats and camels. The Wahiba Sands, the Sea of Sand, run roughly 200 km from the Hajar mountains south to the Arabian Sea and about 100 km across, with dunes between 100 and 150 metres high that change shape and colour through the day. A drive up and over them is exhilarating, and sunset from the ridge is the moment of the day, when the sand turns through every shade of gold. Back to camp, dinner under the stars and overnight.

Day 4: The Desert, A Wadi And The City Of Dhows

For anyone who wants it, there is something worth getting up for: waking at first light, walking barefoot up a dune and waiting for the sun to come over the rim, in colours and silence that stay with you. There is time for a camel ride inside the camp too, before saying goodbye to the sand. Along the way you will see Bedouin homes and come close to a nomadic people who are genuinely hospitable and still largely untouched by tourism. We drive on to Wadi Bani Khalid, one of the most beautiful in the country. Walking between its pools takes you into wide mango plantations kept green by the falaj, the channels that let farmers work the land at the foot of the mountains. After the desert, the cool of the water is very welcome. We continue towards Sur through the Al Kamil area where, with a little luck, a camel will cross the road in front of you. Many of Oman’s leading families come from Sur, and there are some spectacular houses along the way. We stop at the dhow yards, where the wooden boats that carried Omani trade to India and the lands beyond are still built by hand using techniques passed down through generations. Beyond Sur lies the village of Ayja, settled quietly along the coast, its houses of curious architecture set along narrow lanes with goats and sheep grazing freely between them. Dinner and overnight. Wadi Bani Khalid is a public place. Women are asked to swim wearing a T-shirt and shorts over their swimsuit, in keeping with local custom. Men may swim in swimwear. Turtle watching at Ras Al Jinz is available tonight as an optional tour; see the optional tours page.

Day 5: A Wadi, The Coast And Home

Today we drive the coast road from Sur to Muscat, the Arabian Sea on one side and the mountain rock on the other. The first stop, a few kilometres out of Sur, is Qalhat, one of the oldest port cities in Oman, whose historic walls can still be seen from the road. We reach Wadi Shab and stop to walk the narrow paths that lead to the caves and pools of clear water, in one of the most scenic wadis in the country. The day continues to the Bimah Sinkhole, a spectacular natural crater with clear water at the bottom: a place of real character, counted among the most surprising natural sights in Oman. Back to Muscat, arriving at the airport by 18:00. On request we can arrange an extension at a beach resort of your choice, at additional cost.