Jeddah & Madinah

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

In the evening you go out along the Corniche, over 30 kilometres of waterfront, with King Fahd Fountain rising 312 metres out of the Red Sea in front of the city. Nothing else is scheduled.

A guided morning on foot in Al-Balad. Jeddah has been a major port on the Indian Ocean routes since the 7th century AD and the point at which pilgrims arriving by sea came ashore; the wealth from both built the quarter that survives.

The tower houses are the signature: coral stone several storeys high, their facades covered in roshan, carved wooden bay windows that let the air through while keeping the street from seeing in. Restoration is going building by building and many houses are propped, so the quarter is half ruin and half work site. Your guide will take you through the markets and the older lanes, and the afternoon is unscheduled.

A full day on the water off the Jeddah coast. The Red Sea shoreline runs more than 1,700 kilometres down the western side of the country, and these reefs have had very few divers on them, which is the reason to get in.

You go out with a licensed operator, snorkelling or diving according to your certification, boat and equipment arranged in advance. Back in the city in the late afternoon, with your bags ready for the train tomorrow.

You are driven to the station and take the Haramain high-speed line to Madinah, which sits on the same route as Jeddah and Makkah. You are met on arrival and taken to your hotel, chosen for its position relative to the Prophet's Mosque and to the length of your stay.

The afternoon is deliberately light. Madinah is known for its calm, and the city follows a rhythm shaped by prayer times and by the seasons of visitors, so the first evening is spent getting your bearings rather than moving between sites. Muslim guests who have a permit for Al Rawdah Al Sharifah use it at the time it was booked for.

A full day around Madinah with a guide. You go out to Uhud mountain, one of the sites in the city that mark key moments in the early foundations of Islam, and across the old lava fields, which make the ground here unlike anywhere else in the Hejaz.

The rest of the day is in the historic neighbourhoods and the museums that set out the city's place in that history, with a stop at the date farms the area is known for. Visits are timed to fall outside peak prayer times, which is both the courteous and the calmer way to see the city.

The morning is open, then you are driven to Madinah's international airport for your onward flight. If you would rather return to Jeddah, the Haramain line can be booked for the journey back instead.