A Saudi Arabia Cultural Journey: From Jeddah to AlUla to Riyadh

After breakfast at your hotel, you’ll enjoy a tour of Jeddah, a city on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast that has, since the 7th century A.D., been a major port along the Indian Ocean trade routes as well as a starting point for overseas pilgrims visiting the holy Islamic site of Mecca.

The tour begins at the Abdul Raouf Khalil Museum, which showcases local and Arabia-wide heritage. Afterwards, you’ll return to your hotel for lunch before visiting Jeddah’s historic district, Al-Balad. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Al-Balad is home to hundreds of intricately designed former merchants’ houses built in traditional Roshan design using coral. You’ll visit one of Al-Balad’s most prominent historical houses, Bait Nassif, built in the 19th century, before walking through the bustling Old Market and past the old mosque.

To conclude the tour, you will be driven to the Jeddah Corniche, a 30-kilometre-stretch of coast, passing the Al Rahmah “Floating Mosque”. Located on the Red Sea, the Jeddah Corniche is home to popular recreational areas, pavilions, civic sculptures and the world’s highest fountain, King Fahd’s Fountain, which spurts water to a height of 312 metres.

After your city tour, you will transfer to Jeddah’s airport for your flight to AlUla. Arriving in AlUla, you will be met by a local representative and transferred to your hotel in time for dinner.


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After breakfast, you’ll visit the spectacular UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra, the southernmost important city of the Nabataean Kingdom (and the kingdom’s second city after Jordan’s Petra), which flourished during the caravan trade route from the 2nd century B.C. until the Roman conquest in 106 A.D.

Home to 131 striking monumental tombs with elaborate façades etched into the rockface, Hegra boasts some of the best-preserved relics of the ancient Nabataean Kingdom. Your guide will lead you through this indelible heritage site, detailing the secrets of the tombs, their ancient inscriptions, the stone structures and more.

After sitting down for lunch at a local restaurant, you will transfer to the airport for your flight to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s innovative capital city. After the two-hour flight, you will be met at Riyadh’s airport by a local representative and transferred to your hotel in time for dinner.


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Following breakfast, you’ll board a fast train to the city of Al-Hofuf, the main city of Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ahsa region in the kingdom’s Eastern Province. Al-Ahsa is renowned as the world’s largest oasis with an area of approximately 85.4 sqm. Here, Saudi Arabia’s arid swathes of desert give way to a landscape wherein more than 2.5 million palm trees are fed by an enormous subterranean aquifer, enabling agriculture to flourish year-round.

Al-Ahsa is also home to a secret of the ancient world: the Greek geographer Strabo claimed to have stumbled upon a long-lost Arab kingdom whose capital Gerrha was resplendent in its riches – however, the site of this alleged El Dorado of the Middle East remains undiscovered to this day.

While in Al-Ahsa, you will visit the Qasr Ibrahim fort, erected during Ottoman rule, and its mosque. The fort was taken from the Ottomans in 1913 by Abdulaziz Al Saud, who would go on to found the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Afterwards, you’ll head to Jebel Qarah, an impressive limestone outcrop hewn with caves and canyons that features a viewpoint overlooking the endless palm tree cultivations, whose striking green colour shimmers amid the desert heat. The day trip to Al-Ahsa will conclude at the historical mosque of Jawatha, which is the earliest-known mosque to have been built in Eastern Arabia – experts estimate its construction began in the 7th century A.D.

You’ll then return to Riyadh by train and arrive back at your hotel in time for dinner.


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