Taif

Taif sits in the highlands of the Asir mountains south of Mecca, at elevations between 1,700 and 2,200 metres above sea level, making it the principal summer retreat for Saudi families escaping the furnace heat of the eastern lowlands.

The city is famous throughout the kingdom for the Damask roses that grow on the terraced hillsides around it — a unique cultivar of Rosa damascena that produces the expensive attar of roses oil used in perfume and traditional medicine, harvested each spring in a festival that draws visitors from across the country.

From the summit of Jabal Sabir, at 2,100 metres, the view on a clear morning extends across a dramatic landscape of deep valleys, forested slopes and the distant plains leading to Mecca, and a small mosque at the peak has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries.

The road that winds up from Taif to the summit of Al-Hada mountain is itself a destination — a sweeping descent through juniper forest and bare rock that offers one of the most dramatic drives in the kingdom, with steep drops on the seaward side and the Red Sea visible on clear afternoons.

Taif's historic market quarter retains narrow alleyways of stone shops selling local honey, saffron, and rose products alongside the traditional handicrafts of the Asir region, and the weekly livestock market on the city's outskirts reflects the region's agricultural economy.

After the Ottoman period, when Taif served as the summer seat of the Ottoman governor in the Hijaz, the city became a summer capital for the Saudi royal family in the twentieth century, and the old palace district at the city's eastern edge reflects that era of importance.

The surrounding rose terraces are most productive in April and May, when the harvest takes place and the air in the hills above the city carries the unmistakable scent of fresh roses — a sensory experience that draws visitors who come specifically for the annual rose festival.

The cooler climate of Taif also supports a variety of fruit orchards — pomegranates, grapes, figs and apricots — that are prized across the kingdom, and the local produce market each morning offers a glimpse of the agricultural abundance that the highlands provide.

The city is most alive during the rose harvest season in April and May, when the annual Rose Festival fills the terraces with visitors and the distilleries run day and night to process the harvest into rose water and attar.

Taif's rose terraces and the annual rose festival are a unique cultural and sensory experience found nowhere else in the kingdom.

The mountain landscape of the Asir highlands, with Jabal Sabir and the Al-Hada road, offers scenery unlike anything else in Saudi Arabia.

The combination of rose heritage, mountain scenery and a historic market quarter makes Taif the most characterful city in the southwest.