Al Hamra Old Town

About this place

Al Hamra's old quarter is a mud-brick town terraced down a rocky slope above a palm oasis, below the Jebel Akhdar range, and guidebooks rank it among Oman's best preserved. Its houses rise two to four storeys, some more than three centuries old, and Bait al Safah at its heart is now a living museum. Local accounts say only scattered hamlets, called Kadam, stood here until 1656, when the Al Abri tribe and Imam Sultan bin Saif Al Ya'rubi began digging the falaj that still runs through the quarter. Palm-trunk ceilings carry mud and straw; finer houses keep painted beams and decorated doors. From the 1980s most families moved to modern homes and many houses crumbled; since 2014 a local committee has restored gateways and paths. Bait al Safah, a seventeenth-century house of more than 25 rooms built of mud, straw and sarooj, is where local women usually grind wheat, bake bread over a fire, roast coffee and press shu oil from moringa seeds. Visitors try on traditional clothes, take coffee and dates in the majlis and look over the oasis from the roof. A currency museum opposite shows one villager's collection. As the crow flies, Al Hamra lies 33 km north-west of Nizwa and 17 km north of Bahla Fort, with Jebel Shams to the north; Misfat al Abriyeen, about 7 km by the mountain road, pairs easily with it. Park at the edge and walk the narrow, stony lanes. It is a living town: dress modestly, ask before photographing people and remove your shoes in Bait al Safah.