Very well maintained (restored) castle/ Fort. You can discover many rooms, there are lots of stairs and hidden paths. Like a small labyrinth on various level…and you always have spectacular views. Worth a visit for sure.

A splendid Omani fort. Plenty of parking in front. Entry fee is 4 OMR and totally worth it. Very clean place, big enough not to feel crowded, but still small enough to easily discover its walls and rooms. Also pretty calm and quiet. Definitely worth to visit it.

This fort is very old and has been restored very well. I found it somewhat dull, though, as I had visited Fort Nizwa the day before. I was more impressed by Fort Nizwa, largely due to its informative exhibits.

Our visit was part of a tour, Private Full Day Nizwa Fort Nizwa Souq Bahla Fort Jabreen Castle. Bahla's Castle is just across the road from the mosque so being both Friday and the start of Ramadam. the area was busy! The castle was huge and older than Nizwa with a solid stone base level and various towers properly organised for defence. The fort was built of mud brick to guard frankinsense trade routes, probably in the 12th century and is the largest in Oman. Construction was certainly cruder than Nizwa, or at least the finish of the buildings, with no smoothed walls or decoration. The heat was pretty oppresive by now so Deb went to sit in the shade whilst I clambered up stairs, along walls and in and out of rooms, vaugely following the perimiter of the wall. There were a few other tourists around but most seemed to be following Deb's example so I had the place almost to myself as Juma had gone to perform his prayers in the Friday Mosque. The rooms outside the kasbah, fortified citadel, were all bare of both decoration and furnishing but the walls were thick enough to allow niches to be built in to them. I couldn't go to the top of the tower as that was ladder access only and blocked off but there were nice views over the oasis from the walls and several other mudbrick buildings in various states of decay. The town is apparently surrounded by the original city wall, or as original as it can get being patched up after each rainy season. The kasbah had massively high rooms on the ground floor and some beautiful wooden doors as well as Islamic inscriptions in the entrance hall. I spent some more time exploring here before returning to Deb for us both to walk around the handicraft section next to the (closed) cafe where she was sat. This was very pretty with some lovely modern design touches to show off the pottery workshop's output. We didn't spend as long here as at Nizwa as there was no exhibition and most of the rooms were empty. The place was far more of a military building than one with any unneccessary decoration or luxury.

Quite far from Muscat ~ 120Km but well worth it if you like to see UNESCO sites and historic places. Not well looked after. Fee on entry. Self tour required. Careful of steps. Sit down inside in café and take it all in.

Great fort UNESCO and I prefer this over Nizwa because there are fewer people. It is not as commerical as Nizwa and you are left on your own to do your own exploring which I love. Toilet on site- clean and all good. Entry 4 Omani Riyal Opening hours Sat to Fri 9-5pm You can scan code to get information. Really enjoy the day and you can easily get shared taxi back to Nizwa or Muscat. The care and workshop was closed but there are cafe outside in the souq.