Muscat

Muscat is the gentlest capital in Arabia: a low white city threaded between the sea and the Hajar mountains' saw-toothed wall, where the law itself keeps buildings modest and the corniche curves past a souq that has traded frankincense for two thousand years. Two Portuguese forts, Jalali and Mirani, still flank the old cove like bookends on a story that runs from Sindbad's sailors to the beloved sultan who rebuilt the country with oil and patience.

The traveller walks Mutrah's corniche at golden hour and dives into the souq when the incense smoke starts curling; stands under the Grand Mosque's chandelier and on its hand-knotted carpet, both among the largest ever made; visits the giant incense-burner monument above Riyam park; and takes the sea road to old Muscat's gate and the Sultan's palace framed between the forts. Dates, halwa and cardamom coffee arrive wherever you pause, because hospitality here is grammar, not gesture.

The Guide's practical counsel: Oman is a rental-car country — the wadis, the fjords of Musandam and Nizwa's fort all open from Muscat with an easy drive —; dress modestly and accept every coffee you can; summer is a physical fact best negotiated at dawn and after dusk; and the monsoon-green mists of Salalah belong to another season and another page — this Guide will sail there in its time.