The Murad family were pearl merchants, and their house in Muharraq belongs to the generation that saw the trade at its peak and then watched it collapse. The business boomed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as demand for natural pearls rose in Europe and India, and the merchants of the Gulf grew rich. Then, in the 1930s, the Japanese perfected the cultured pearl, prices fell, and the industry went into a decline from which it never recovered. In Bahrain the crash was cushioned by oil, struck in 1932, the first oil strike on the Arab side of the Gulf.
The result is that the old houses of Muharraq are a record of a vanished prosperity. The family names on them, the Siyadis, the Murads, the Fakhros, belong to merchants who bankrolled voyages, built mosques and set up the town's institutions. Their houses are the best evidence, with their carved wooden doors, plaster ornament and shaded courtyards, and the care that has gone into restoring them has given the neighbourhood back some dignity. The restoration was carried out for the UNESCO listing in 2012.
You will find the lanes tight and the buildings close, and it is best explored on foot with a bottle of water. Look up for the wooden balconies and the decorative gypsum panels, and look at the detail in the door frames. The sounds are from daily life, a radio from an open window, shoes on stone, the call to prayer from one of several mosques. It is a living neighbourhood, so be discreet with a camera and avoid blocking doorways.
For a rider, Muharraq island is small and the roads are busy, with school traffic in the morning and heavy congestion in the late afternoon. Park on the wider streets and walk. Fuel is cheap and easy to find, with stations on the main roads in Muharraq and Manama. The island is also home to the airport, so you will hear aircraft overhead. Summer is hot and humid, and the best months are from November to March. In the evening, look for a cafe serving halwa, the sweet, sticky Bahraini dessert flavoured with saffron and cardamom, which is the island's most famous sweet.