Taif is the cool lung of Saudi Arabia, a city of half a million set on the crest of the Sarawat mountains at something like eighteen hundred metres. After the furnace of the Red Sea lowlands the first lungful of air here is a small shock, and in winter the nights can really bite. For centuries the town has been the place where Hejazi families went to escape the summer, and the royal court still moves up here in the hot months.
Its great product is the rose. Taif roses are grown on small terraced farms in the hills above the city, picked by hand at dawn in a short season around April, and distilled into rose water and an oil that is prized across the Gulf. If you arrive at the right time, the smell drifts down the valleys and into the shops of the old souq, where you can buy a little vial without needing a long conversation. Pomegranates, figs, honey and grapes also come from these slopes, and you will find them in the market stalls.
History runs deep. Before Islam, the plain near Taif hosted the annual fair of Ukaz, where poets recited and tribes traded, and the city later became a prize in the early wars of the Prophet's lifetime. The old quarter, with its coral-and-stone houses and wooden shutters, has had a hard time against modern construction, but pockets remain. Taif is open to visitors of every faith, unlike Mecca, so there is no restriction on stopping here, and the downhill road toward the plain is the reason many riders arrive.
The approach from the plain is the ride's high point. Whichever way you take it, it is a long climb through rock walls, tunnels and hairpins, and the road down toward Al Hadā has a cable car running beside it for part of the way. Slow trucks and a lot of cars in summer weekends make overtaking an exercise in nerve, and visibility drops when the cloud rolls in, which happens more often than visitors expect. Fuel and food are everywhere in the city, with plenty of petrol stations on the outskirts, and the evenings, with the heat gone and families out in the parks, are the best part of the day.