Ask a taxi driver in Taif where to go for a walking tour and the honest answer is a shrug, because this is a highway city spread across a mountain plateau, not a compact old town built for wandering. Souq Al Balad is the real walk here The one genuine walking route is Souq Al Balad, the old central market, where a 1.5 to 2 hour loop covers cobblestone pedestrian lanes lined with mountain honey merchants selling sidr and sumra varietals, oud perfume stalls and working herbalists, ending near the historic Abdullah Ibn Abbas Mosque.

At 1,879 meters up in the Sarawat Mountains, Taif runs about 10 to 15 degrees cooler than Jeddah or Mecca down on the plains, which is the whole reason the Saudi royal court and half the country have retreated here every summer for generations. Rose distilleries, not rose photos The activity Taif is actually known for is the rose harvest, and it runs on a narrow calendar: roughly March into April, when the terraced Damask rose farms around Al Hada bloom and the family-run distilleries go into round-the-clock production.