Four days in Muscat: the Gulf capital that refused to build towers

Land, get to Mutrah, and give the first evening to the harbour. The corniche runs a couple of kilometres along the water below a wall of bare brown rock, with dhows and the royal yacht moored off it, whitewashed merchant houses on the landward side and a promenade that fills up as soon as the heat drops.

Halfway along, climb the little hill to the restored Portuguese watchtower above the souq. It is a five minute scramble, the tower itself is shut, and the view from beside it takes in the whole crescent of the bay, the fort on the far headland and the mountains behind. Go about an hour before sunset.

Then go into Mutrah Souq, which is the reason people put Muscat on a list. It is a covered maze under carved wooden roofs, lit by shafts of light and hanging lamps, and it still functions as a market rather than a museum: frankincense and the burners to smoke it in, Omani silver, khanjar daggers, textiles from India, halwa sold by weight, and a good deal of cheap Chinese tat in between. It smells extraordinary. Allow longer than you think and accept that you will get lost, which is fine, because it is only a few hundred metres across.

The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque only admits non-Muslim visitors in the morning, so go early and go first. It was completed in 2001 in Indian sandstone, with a main dome fifty metres up, arcaded courtyards big enough to lose people in, and a prayer hall carrying a single Persian carpet that took hundreds of weavers four years to knot and a chandelier of Swarovski crystal and gold plate hanging fourteen metres. What lifts it above the other Gulf mega-mosques is the restraint: the courtyards are plain, the proportions are careful, and the side riwaqs are decorated in the styles of different Islamic centuries, one bay at a time. Women need hair, wrists and ankles covered. Everyone needs to be out by late morning.

Then drive east to Old Muscat for the National Museum, which opened in 2016 and is the most professional museum in the country: fourteen galleries on Omani seafaring, the frankincense trade, the Ibadi imamate, the empire that once ran Zanzibar, and the twentieth century. Oman's version of Islam is Ibadi rather than Sunni or Shia, a distinct and older school found almost nowhere else, and the museum explains it better than anything you will read.

Come out and look across the road. Qasr Al Alam, the sultan's ceremonial palace, sits at the head of the harbour with mushroom-topped columns in blue and gold, flanked by Al Jalali and Al Mirani, two forts the Portuguese built on the cliffs in the 1580s to hold the anchorage. You cannot go into the palace or the forts, and it does not matter: the composition of white palace, brown rock and two forts over green water is the image of Muscat, and the gates and the waterfront in front of it are open to anybody.

Nizwa is about 140 km inland over a good road that climbs out of the coastal strip and through a gap in the Hajar mountains, and the drive takes an hour and a half. It was the capital of Oman in the sixth and seventh centuries, it remained the seat of the Ibadi imams long after the sultans had moved to the coast, and it is still the most conservative and most self-contained town in the north.

Get the day right and go on a Friday, because the livestock market runs on Friday mornings only and it is the single best hour anywhere near Muscat. From about half past seven, men walk goats around a ring at the edge of the souq while buyers shout, slap hands and pay in cash, and it is a working auction that has nothing to do with visitors. It is over by nine.

Then the fort, which was finished in 1668 by Imam Sultan bin Saif and is built around one enormous round tower, roughly forty metres across, filled solid with earth and rock for most of its height so that cannon could not bring it down. Inside are the murder holes, the false doors and the shafts through which boiling date syrup was poured on anybody who got that far. The roof gives you the whole oasis: the date palms, the falaj channels and the mountains. Finish in the souq below, which is quiet after the morning, and where the pottery, silver and date sections are worth an hour.

The Royal Opera House opened in 2011, the first in the Arabian peninsula, and it is on the road west towards the airport, which makes it the natural last stop. It was Sultan Qaboos's own project. He was a serious listener, particularly to European classical music, and he wanted a house with the acoustics to justify itself rather than an ornament.

The building is Omani rather than Italian: pale stone, arcades, carved teak from Myanmar, a retractable ceiling and Italian marble inside. Daytime tours run most mornings when there is no rehearsal, take about an hour and get you into the auditorium. If your dates line up with an actual performance, tickets are far cheaper than the equivalent in Europe and the dress code is enforced.

The airport is twenty five minutes further west. If you are staying in Oman rather than flying out, this is also the road to Nakhal, Rustaq and the mountains, and anybody with two more days should take it.