From Misfat, we drove down the steep hill to the 400-year-old town of Al Hamra, located on the southern slopes of the Hajar Mountains. This venerable village, one of the oldest in Oman, was settled in the late 17th century by the Al Abri tribes during the rule of Imam Saif bin Sultan, the...
We drove up a 6-kilometer-long sneaky road from Al Hamra to a unique mountainous village located 1,000 m above sea level on the mountain foothills of the Hajar Mountains. We parked near the campground before the village and walked around ancient stone buildings, half buried in a thick...
We arrived in Bahla late in the afternoon and parked just in the middle of town next to one of the oldest fortresses in the country, the 13th-century Bahla Fort. It is located 40 km away from Nizwa in the Hajar Mountains. It was built by the Bani Nebhan tribe, who dominated the area from...
Today, we drove to a highly atmospheric site of “beehive tombs” in Al Ayn village. This string of tombs is arranged along a low, russet-colored ridge against Jebel Misht that towers behind. Little is known about the tombs except that they were constructed between 2000 and 3000...
After crossing the border, our first stop was a little sleepy town on Ibri. We parked near the Old Souq and wandered in the heart of town, around the imposing building of Ibri Castle, to explore the ruins of the old town. Then we moved to the enormous Sulaif castle on the edge of Ibri. It...
Our first, and for some time, last destination in UAE was Al Ain. We stopped here for a day on the way to Oman. Fed by natural springs and set amid date palm plantations, Al Ain was once a vital pit-stop on the caravan route between Oman and the Gulf and is the birthplace of the United...
It took us a few hours to explore the really nice newly opened museum of Tatra Trucks in Kopřivnice (🎟️ 220 CZK). It presents a unique collection of 80 TATRA trucks and chassis in more than 5,000 square meters. The core of the collection is the original collection of Jiří Hlach, a...
We spent a few days during our “expedition break” in Mosty u Jablunkova in the Moravian-Silesian Region, about 46 km southeast of Ostrava. It lies in the Jablunkov Pass of the Beskydy Mountains in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia on the border with Slovakia. The...
We did visit Al-Qarah Mountain because it’s relatively close to Dammam, and it was a nice break to cool down in the caves before the long drive to UAE. Caves near Al Hofuf were formed due to the dissolving process of water-soluble rocks, the collapse of the upper rock layers due to...
We stopped at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, known as “Ithra” (‘enrichment’ in Arabic). It opened in 2017 and immediately became an icon and symbol of changes in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And not only because of its jaw-dropping design, which...