Where to find the most dramatic scenery in all the Middle East

OMANI GRAND CANYON

From Muscat airport, it’s two hours’ drive to the Al Jabal Al Akhdar mountains, passing crumbling medieval watchtowers, lush date plantations and the scattered ruins of thousand-year-old villages. The first part of my week-long itinerary is at Alila Jabal Akhdar, a stylish eco-resort built from dark limestone in the manner of an Omani fort.

Tucked deep into the mountains, Alila is a true destination hotel. Offering daily excursions, locally grown dishes and a beautiful eco-spa, which has spectacular treatment rooms overlooking the gorge, it’s a great base for clients who want to combine adventure and relaxation.

Part of the Al Hajar mountain range – Jabal Akhdar means “green mountain” in Arabic – the area is considered the Omani grand canyon and a premier destination for rock climbers. Through the hotel’s leisure concierge, guests can book Alila’s via ferrata (“iron road” in Italian) a series of steel cables which descend into the gorge. However, it’s not an excursion for the faint-hearted so if your clients suffer from a fear of heights they can perhaps opt for meditation, sunrise yoga or cookery lessons which are offered daily.

Not willing to brave it, I book a half-day hike led by local mountain guide Mohammed. As we climb the rocky paths through the mountain, dodging the Acacia trees armed with needle-sharp spikes, Mohammed shows me the ruins of a house built into the rock. Now deserted by the family, it’s been left to sink back into the earth. 

Freshening up before dinner, I step out onto my balcony and breathe in the quiet of the canyon at sunset. Over my two-night stay, I’ve walked out here maybe a couple of dozen times and still I’m knocked breathless by the view. It’s even better from the shallows of the infinity pool, hewn out of limestone rock, which seemingly pours over the cliff edge.

Come six o’clock, when night falls likes a stage curtain, the dark inky sky is powdered with stars and after dinner, Alila’s house astronomer Lujaina entrusts me with her telescope to see the rings of Saturn, and craters of Jupiter and Mars. 

GULF COAST ISLANDS

After a few days in the mountains, it’s time for a little R&R at the seaside. On Oman’s Gulf coast, just south of Al Batinah, the Barcelo Mussanah Resort is a four-star beachfront property overlooking the Gulf of Oman. 

It’s an hour’s drive from Muscat, slightly less from the airport, which makes it a great spot for clients looking to combine the beach and the city. One of the biggest draws of the resort is its proximity to the Daymaniyat Islands, a Unesco-listed nature reserve a 40-minute boat ride away from the resort’s Mussanah marina.

This clutch of nine uninhabited islands – quartz-white beaches lapped by tepid topaz seas and ringed by a coral reef – is teeming with brightly coloured marine life, including sea turtles and even whale sharks, which glide through the warm Gulf waters between July and October. 

MUSCAT MAGIC

The ethereal call to prayer ringing out five times a day is a big presence in Muscat, and one of my favourite things about being in the Middle East. Built in 2001, the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is a dazzling marble edifice laced with gold and turquoise, and easily the most striking sight in the city. Outside of prayer times, visitors are warmly welcomed, as long as they dress conservatively and cover their hair. The main prayer hall is magnificent.

Dominated by a 40ft-high chandelier – time your visit right and the cavernous hall is showered in diamonds of light – there’s also a vast, intricately hand-loomed carpet, once the world’s largest rug, rolling through the hall like an ocean. 

Stretching for almost 25 miles along the Gulf of Oman, behind Muscat’s dazzling modern facade – the glittering Grand Mosque and the contemporary Royal Opera House – is a millennia of history, which I learn about in Bait Al Zubair Museum in Old Muscat.

However, there’s no better way to really delve under the skin of Muscat culture than by getting delightfully lost in Mutrah souk, the city’s labyrinthine bazaar. Haggling with charming men and kohl-eyed women over everything from boxes of dates and hookah pipes to clay pots and silver jewellery, I settle on some Omani frankincense, the aromatic resin drawn from the indigenous Boswellia tree grown in Dhofar.

While very tempting, I resist buying a khanjar – the ornamental dagger and symbol of Oman – which seems strangely at odds with the tranquillity and beauty of the country and its people. 

Book it: Kuoni offers three nights’ B&B at Alila Jabal Akhdar in a Mountain View Suite, from £2,199pp, based on 6 March 2023 departure including Oman Air flights (kuoni.co.uk). Barcelo Mussanah can be booked direct from £147 a night (barcelo.com).