Flights to Bahrain

Start in Muharraq on the Pearling Path, a UNESCO-listed trail of merchants' houses, warehouses and offshore oyster beds. It tells the story of the pearl trade Bahrain lived on until the 1930s, when cultured pearls and oil changed everything. Bin Matar House and Siyadi House, two restored pearl merchants' homes on the trail, are open to visitors. On the north coast, Qal'at al-Bahrain, also called Bahrain Fort, stands on a mound built up by around 4,000 years of settlement, and the Dilmun burial mounds near A'ali spread across the ground in their thousands.

In Manama, walk through Bab al-Bahrain, the old gateway to the souq, for spices, gold and oud perfume. The Bahrain National Museum is a short drive away and fills in the Dilmun story you'll have seen at the fort.

Food here leans on rice and spice. Try machboos, spiced rice cooked with chicken, lamb or fish, and finish with Bahraini halwa, a sticky sweet flavoured with saffron and rosewater and sold from family shops in Muharraq. Karak, strong tea brewed with milk and cardamom, is on sale almost everywhere.

Out in the southern desert, the Tree of Life, a mesquite tree thought to be around 400 years old, grows alone with no obvious water source. Not far away, the Bahrain International Circuit at Sakhir hosts the Formula 1 Grand Prix, and outside race weekends it runs track days and karting.

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