A country · 32 places · 4 regions

Bahrain, all of it.

32 curated places across 4 regions — photographed, mapped, and noted with the season each is best in.

Pearling, Testimony of an Island Economy · via Wikimedia Commons

Bahrain reads below in 4 chapters — Capital Governorate, Northern Governorate, Muharraq Governorate and Southern Governorate — in any order you like.

Chapter I · Capital Governorate · 9 places

Capital Governorate

Built on the foundations of successive ancient settlements extending back to the Dilmun Bronze Age civilisation, Bahrain Fort is a UNESCO World Heritage Site comprising a sixteenth-century Portuguese fortification constructed atop thousands of years of accumulated occupation layers. Archaeological excavations on the surrounding tell have exposed Kassite, Assyrian, and Hellenistic-period remains beneath the visible Portuguese structure. The fort's elevated position above the sea offers views across the northern Bahrain coastline and the city of Manama beyond.

Bahrain Fort

Capital Governorate, Bahrain

✦ October to April

Bahrain World Trade Center

Capital Governorate, Bahrain

✦ winter

Al Khamis Mosque

Capital Governorate, Bahrain

✦ November to March · $

All 9 places in Capital Governorate →

via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter II · Northern Governorate · 4 places

Northern Governorate

The excavated remains of a Bronze Age temple complex associated with the Dilmun civilisation. Three superimposed temples were uncovered here, once dedicated to a water deity.

✦ November to March · $

Meet Barbar Temple All 4 places in Northern Governorate →

Chapter III · Muharraq Governorate · 3 places

Muharraq Governorate

The former capital of Bahrain occupying its own island connected to the main island by a causeway, Muharraq preserves the most intact historic townscape in the country, with the reconstructed Sheikh Isa bin Ali House and the associated pearling trail — part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site — weaving through renovated merchant houses, mosques, and warehouses. The old town's narrow lanes lined with coral-block buildings and traditional mashrabiya lattice screens represent the Gulf's pre-oil merchant urbanism more comprehensively than anywhere else in Bahrain.

Muharraq

Muharraq Governorate, Bahrain

✦ October to April

Siyadi Mosque, Muharraq

Muharraq Governorate, Bahrain

Bu Maher Fort

Muharraq Governorate, Bahrain

All 3 places in Muharraq Governorate →

via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter IV · Southern Governorate · 2 places

Southern Governorate

An eighteenth-century fort on the edge of a wide valley, restored with reception halls and a mosque within its walls. From the ramparts the land drops away toward the old town of Riffa.

✦ November to March

Meet Riffa Fort All 2 places in Southern Governorate →