3 Days in Abha

Start with the building that tells you what Abha looked like before the cable cars. Shadda Palace, the White Palace, went up in 1929 on the orders of King Abdulaziz, and for a time it was the headquarters of the Emirate of Asir. It is four floors of stone and plaster that narrow toward the top, with wooden doors, windows and ceilings, in the style of the highlands. The hilltop forts belonged to the local emirs; this one belongs to the kingdom that replaced them.

It is now a heritage museum, with household objects, handicrafts, manuscripts, coins and photographs from Abha and the region, and it joined the National Architectural Heritage Register in 2017. An hour is plenty.

Two kilometers west is the lake behind Abha Dam, the city's easiest viewpoint. Abha gets about 278 mm of rain a year, mostly from February to April, and it gathers part of its irrigation water from rain harvesting, so a reservoir here matters more than it looks.

Come for the water and the hills behind it. It's better by day or toward sunset than at night, and it's a pause between the palace and lunch, not a destination.

Kabsa, the spiced rice with chicken or lamb that is Saudi Arabia's national dish, is on every menu in Abha, and a heaped tray is the right lunch before a cable car. Pick a plain restaurant with a sit-down majlis (floor seating) room and order by the portion. Prices are an estimate.

The first cable car is the easy one. It leaves from the Abha Al Jadidah station in the south of the city and climbs Jabal Al Akhdar, the Green Mountain, in about 20-30 minutes each way. At the top are cafes, food stalls, viewing platforms and souvenir shops. It is the most family-oriented of the three cable cars around Abha, which means busy at the weekend and calm on a Wednesday afternoon.

Treat it as a viewpoint with a ride attached: you get the whole city spread over the ridge, the lake, and the haze rolling in over the mountains. The green lighting at night is part of the pitch, so stay for the evening if the weather is clear.

The last stop is the artists' quarter. Al Muftaha is a cluster of old Asir houses in the middle of Abha, built in the region's traditional stone style and about 260 years old by one account. It was rehabilitated and turned into a cultural village, and today it has galleries, a theater (the Talal Maddah theater, named for the singer who died on stage at an Abha summer festival) and two small museums beside the village mosque.

One of the museums is the one to see, because it explains the painting tradition of the region: a family's social standing was shown by the quality of the murals in its house. That is al-Qatt al-Asiri, wall painting in bright geometric patterns, usually done by women, and on UNESCO's list since 2017. Galleries and cafes are reported to open around 4pm, so this is a late-afternoon-to-evening stop.

Finish with the ritual that holds Saudi hospitality together: qahwa, Arabic coffee, poured in small cups, lightly roasted and spiced with cardamom, with dates beside it. Take it in one of the cafes around the village. Shake the cup lightly when you've had enough, or the host will keep refilling it. If a cafe has the regional dessert areeka, wheat dough with ghee and honey, try it too.

Start with the food of the mountains. The Asir breakfast is built from wheat, ghee and honey: aseeda (a dough of wheat flour served with a savory sauce or honey), miva bread baked in a clay oven and the regional honey, which is central to the cooking here. Find a local cafe serving breakfast, not a hotel buffet, and ask what's baked fresh.

Khamis Mushait is the large town east of Abha, on the way to Habala. The reason to stop is the market, where people buy traditional Asir clothes and the silver ware the region is known for.

Walk the lanes for silverware and Asir clothes, and bring cash. It's a working town, not a sight: an hour is enough.

The cable car is the only practical way into Habala, a village hung on a cliff about 300 meters below the rim of the valley. The ride takes about 15 minutes and drops you at the edge of the old settlement, with the valley opening below. The name comes from the Arabic for rope, because for most of its history the only way in was a rope ladder.

Plan on 2 hours, including the walk.

Habala's old residents were known as the flower men, for the garlands of dried herbs and flowers they wore in their hair. Accounts say they settled here fleeing the Ottomans. In the 1990s, when the cable car was built to open the village to visitors, the residents were moved to a modern village in the valley below. Reports say some resisted and were removed by the National Guard. Today some are allowed back, and dance for visitors in the summer season.

What you see is therefore partly a stage set: stone houses turned into cafes and restaurants in the high season, a museum in a second section reached by a short trail, and views along the escarpment. Some guides call it commercial now. Still go, for the setting and a tradition that survives in a changed form.

Many of the old buildings in the village are cafes and restaurants in season, so eat after the ride, not before. Order tea or Arabic coffee and a simple plate. Out of season, carry water and food.

Haneeth is the signature dish of the region: lamb, or sometimes a rice-and-meat plate, cooked slowly in an iron pot over a sand pit, and served with miva bread and a savory broth, often in stone pots. Order it for the table.

No single restaurant could be confirmed open this year, so ask your hotel for a haneeth place that cooks it fresh that day.

Al Soudah is the mountain area west of Abha and the highest ground in Saudi Arabia, at around 3,000 meters, about 10°C cooler than the rest of the country. It is also the place with the most change coming: Soudah Peaks, a government-backed mountain resort announced in 2023, is meant to bring hotels and more cable cars, with early phases listed for around 2027, so what you see now is partly a work in progress.

The existing cable car takes about 20 minutes each way and climbs toward the top, with views over the escarpment and the juniper forest. Arab News describes a cable car from Al-Soudah to Rijal Alma, then a tourist bus to the village, but listings differ on how it runs today, so ask at the ticket window. Food at the top is limited; bring water and snacks.

Above 1,600 meters the acacia woodland of the lower slopes gives way to forest of Juniperus procera, the juniper that covers the Asir mountains, and this is the heart of Asir National Park, a protected area of about 6,490 square kilometers that runs from the Red Sea coast up to peaks of 3,200 meters. Jabal Sawda, officially the highest peak in Saudi Arabia at 3,207 meters, stands here, though a 2018 survey of nearby Jabal Ferwa measured it a little lower.

You don't have to climb it. A loop of about 8 km from the main car park is listed as 3-4 hours and easy to moderate, with several viewpoints over the western edge, and shorter walks from the top station are enough for the forest. The summit hike is in More time.

Rijal Almaa is the reason to come down the mountain: a village of about 60 multi-story buildings of stone, clay and wood, more than 900 years old by local account, some as tall as eight floors, with white quartz bands in the stone and brightly colored wooden windows. It sat on the trade route between Yemen, the Levant and the holy cities, which is why it became rich enough to build towers. It was given the right to file for UNESCO World Heritage listing in 2018 and won the Prince Sultan bin Salman urban heritage prize in 2017.

The village museum is in the Al Alwan palace, a building more than four centuries old, restored with the help of the villagers, with more than two thousand objects in nineteen sections. Walk up through the alleys to see the Qatt decoration on the inside walls and the colored geometric chairs and mats in the courtyards. Hours and prices vary, so ask at the gate.

Some restaurants in the village have terraces with a view over the green valleys. Order kabsa, and finish with tea or Arabic coffee and dates. Asir honey is central to the local kitchen and makes a good buy.

Finish with mandi, meat and rice cooked in a pit oven, a dish that came from Yemen and has been adopted across Arabia. Yemeni-style restaurants in Abha serve it by the half chicken or by the tray of lamb. Order it with a salad and a pot of tea.