Riyadh & Jeddah

You are met at the airport and driven to your hotel. Riyadh is the country's main air hub, so most long-haul routes land here.

Nothing is scheduled for the rest of the day. The next two days are the two halves of the city - the founding sites in the centre, and the escarpment outside it.

The National Museum of Saudi Arabia in the morning, inside the King Abdulaziz Historical Centre. Its halls run in sequence from prehistory to unification, so the whole span can be walked once without doubling back. Al Masmak, the clay fort where the capture of the city in 1902 began, sits in the same quarter and follows straight on.

In the afternoon, out to Diriyah, about twenty minutes from the centre. At-Turaif was the seat of the Emirate of Diriyah from 1727 to 1818 and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2010 - thick mud-brick walls, stepped parapets and triangular openings cut high for light and air, restored so that you walk the streets themselves.

Wadi Hanifa runs directly below the district. The valley carries 120 kilometres through the capital and was rebuilt from a dumping ground into a chain of parks, walking paths and treated water channels. No reservation is needed for any of it, so the evening is spent as you like it.

A full day out at the Edge of the World, about 100 kilometres north-west of the city. The Tuwaiq escarpment runs some 800 kilometres across central Arabia, and at this point the wall falls away to a flat desert floor that carries on to the horizon with nothing on it. The cliff stands 1,131 metres. There are marine fossils in the rock - snails and shells - because this was seabed long before it was desert.

There is no entry ticket and no infrastructure of any kind: no water, no food, no fuel, and mobile coverage that drops out. The final approach is rough track, so the day is run in a four-wheel drive with a driver who knows the route, and everything needed is carried in. The timing is built around sunset, both for the light along the cliff and because the middle of the day here is exposed.

A morning flight west to Jeddah. You are met on arrival and driven to your hotel near the coast.

The afternoon and evening go to Historic Jeddah, the merchant quarter known as Al-Balad, on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2014. Tower houses of coral stone stand several storeys high, their facades covered in roshan, the carved wooden bay windows that let air through while keeping the street from seeing in. Many are propped and mid-restoration, so the quarter is half ruin and half work site.

A morning boat out on the Red Sea for snorkelling. Jeddah is one of the two main hubs for diving on this coast, and the reefs along the Saudi shoreline - more than 1,700 kilometres of it - have had very few divers on them.

The afternoon is free. In the evening, the Corniche runs more than 30 kilometres along the waterfront, with King Fahd Fountain, 312 metres high, out in the water and visible from across the city.

The morning is free, and you are driven to the airport for the flight home.

If the departure is late, the Al-Balad lanes are worth a second walk in daylight.