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A Daily Blog On A Gulf Costa Cruise – Part 5

A Daily Blog On A Gulf Costa Cruise - Part 5

More than half way through our 7-Day cruise, we spend day 5 in the city facinating of Bahrain.

This is the only time the weather has frowned on us. We cannot berth at Bahrain as there is a thick mist everywhere. What will happen to our History Culture and Local Tradition Tour and will we get to see any of this archipelago of nearly 30 islands in the Persian Gulf? Happily after two hours the haze clears and we can see 25km causeway that links the islands of Bahrain with mainland Saudi Arabia.

At last we are off on the tour but as there is a demonstration outside the Grand Mosque, our informative Tunisian guide, called Ons decides to change the order and start at the Bahrain Fort.

En route we go through the capital Manama and see a more modern tourist site; the iconic Twin towers of the World Trade Centre with its wind turbines. The city is also famous for its Formula One Racing and since 2004, for holding The Grand Prix.

Historically, Bahrain, situated between such major cultures as Mesopotamia and India, was an important trade centre. This role produced a unique cultural heritage spanning 6000 years. We reach the fort and are told that there has been human habitation here from 2300 BC, and it was once the capital of the Dilmun civilisation, one of the most important of the region.

The very spot we are standing in contains the richest remains of this culture, – previously only known from written references. Just 25% of the site has been excavated, revealing different structures, public, commercial, residential military and religious. On top of it all is the impressive Portuguese Fort which gives the whole place its name. In 2005 it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Later we learn that most of Bahrain was once a cemetery, with fields of graves built by the inhabitants between the middle of the 3rd millennium B.C. and the middle of the Ist millennium A.D. These burial ensembles consist of tumuli of various shapes, forming fields of different levels of density and are strange to look at. Is seems they are the densest concentrations of burial mounds found anywhere in the world, from any period.

In 1982, the Government of Bahrain decided to build a new, purpose built National Museum with one of the exhibits an actual burial mound transported from its site in the desert and reassembled. A large part of the museum is given over to explaining the Dilmun burial mounds.

We eventually do get to visit the outside of the Grand Mosque, which is a pleasing building, absolutely enormous, and able to accommodate up to 7,000 believers. We end our tour visiting a camel farm home to about 400.

There is a special area for all the pregnant mothers a teenage compound and the chance to see a 3 week old baby, who got up and came near us to inspect us onlookers and was quickly pursued by a rather protective mum!

You can read part 6 of my cruise on Thursday the 12th of March 2009

Lucy Daltroff