Family journey

You are met at Jeddah airport and taken to your hotel. Jeddah is the country's second international airport and the standard arrival point for the west coast.

Nothing is scheduled. Jeddah is the most relaxed of the big Saudi cities and the hotel and the seafront are enough for a first evening.

The morning goes to Historic Jeddah before the heat builds. Coral-stone tower houses stand several storeys high, their fronts covered in roshan, the carved wooden bay windows. Parts of the quarter are propped and under restoration, so the guide keeps to the lanes that are open and walkable.

The middle of the day is free at the hotel. Late in the afternoon you go out to the corniche, which runs for more than 30 kilometres along the Red Sea, with the King Fahd Fountain standing 312 metres high offshore.

The drive inland climbs the Al Hada road, a line of switchbacks through the Sarawat mountains that has been in use for a thousand years and was known as Darb Al-Jammalah, the route of the camel caravans. The temperature drops as you climb; at around 2,177 metres there are acacia and juniper along the road, and vendor stalls selling rose water, fruit and warm drinks.

Al-Kar Tourist Village sits on the same road, reached by cable car or by road, with water games, a car race and a flying carpet that carries you from one mountainside to another on ropes. You are in Taif in time for an early dinner.

Taif's roses are a working industry rather than a tourist story. Growers return to the fields each December, and about 55 days later the crop goes to the distilleries for rose water and perfume oil. The morning is at a rose farm and a distillery, then the Al Shareef Museum, a preserved traditional building holding coins, weaponry, clothing and household pieces from across the Hejaz.

After the heat, the drive up to Al Shafa, about 30 kilometres from town and over 2,500 metres above sea level, where juniper grows and the air stays cool. Back in Taif for the evening.

A slow morning in Taif, then the road back down the escarpment to Jeddah and an afternoon flight across to Riyadh.

You are met at Riyadh airport and driven to the hotel. Distances inside the capital are large and the city is built for driving, so all movement from here is by private vehicle. The evening is free.

The National Museum of Saudi Arabia is arranged as halls in sequence, from the geology of the peninsula through pre-Islamic Arabia and the life of the Prophet to the Saudi states and the unification, with interactive displays throughout. Large bags go into lockers at the entrance. The surrounding gardens are open ground for a break between halls.

Afterwards, Al Masmak on the same grounds: a small clay fort with four corner towers, now a museum of the 1902 capture of Riyadh and the founding of the state. The tip of bin Jiluwi's spear, thrown during that battle and lodged in the gate, is still there.

Diriyah is about twenty minutes from central Riyadh. At-Turaif, its mud-brick district, was the capital of the first Saudi state and is a World Heritage Site; it has been restored as a walkable museum quarter, so the visit is a walk through streets rather than a viewing from outside.

Below it runs Wadi Hanifa, flowing 120 kilometres through the capital and reclaimed from a dumping ground into Riyadh's largest natural park: shaded trails, landscaped gardens, picnic areas and restaurants along the valley edge. No tickets and no reservations, so the afternoon runs as long as everyone wants it to.

The morning is free depending on your flight, with the car and driver available for a last stop or for shopping.

You are collected from the hotel and taken to the airport in time for your departure.