These decorative elements reflect the many cultural cross-currents during the 200-year Nabatean Kingdom. As we admire one chiseled tomb after another, some with accessible interior chambers, our guide, Adek, points out the Greek columns, Egyptian lotus motifs, Roman eagles, and even a snake-bedecked Medusa that adorn the facades. It’s littered with 111 monumental tombs remarkably carved into the sandstone crags from the top down so no scaffolding was needed. Hegra, a key trade hub on the legendary incense and spice route, was the Nabateans’ second most important city after its far more famous sibling, Petra, in Jordan.
On the way, I watch the massive outcrops and boulders - etched by millennia of wind, rain, and sand - strut and swagger across the desert plain. The most famous gem is the 2,000-year-old remains of Hegra - sometimes called “the other Petra.” On a blazingly hot, sunny morning, we pile into white Land Cruisers and head to Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO Heritage Site. Eco-lodges and luxury resorts - including one designed by Pritzker Prize-winning French architect Jean Nouvel that will be carved right into the ancient sandstone cliffs - are coming on line. “AlUla is the crown jewel of Saudi Arabia,” chef Atherton tells me. Boldface entertainers are following the likes of Andrea Bocelli and Lionel Richie with concerts at Maraya. New cultural venues (incense museum, anyone?) are in the works. Boasting 200,000 years of largely unexplored human history, it’s now the focus of an audacious $32 billion multi-year project to turn it into a tourist showpiece that helps diversity the economy as part of Saudi Vision 2030. Located on the historic trade and pilgrimage routes between Arabia and the Mediterranean, its archaeological sites and age-old dwellings make it the world’s largest living museum - about the size of New Jersey. Two shore excursions will be available on Silversea’s Jeddah to Piraeus itinerary onboard, including the 2-day tour AlUla Overnight from the Red Sea port of Al Wajh.
#Maraya alula full#
And the sense that I’m witnessing a nation in transition literally shrouded from the outside world, Brigadoon-like, until recently.Īnd for the first time on a Silversea expedition cruise, the riches of AlUla will be on full display.
Not to mention the heartfelt hospitality and enormous pride of place expressed by everyone I encounter. In fact, it’s the yin-yang of antiquity and modernity, leapfrogging centuries, amid such eye candy that stops me in my tracks. Or an oasis of 2.3 million date palms set in an otherworldly landscape of towering sandstone outcrops to rival Utah’s Red Rocks? Never. Or more than 100 head-turning megalithic tombs at least 2,000 years old rising from the desert floor like silent sentinels? Not at all. Consider that the country only started issuing tourist visas in late 2019 and then COVID kept visitors away for the next two years.ĪlUla’s Maraya Concert Hall is the largest mirrored building in the world/Veronica Stoddartĭid I expect to find a Michelin-honored chef in one of the most closed countries on Earth? Hardly. And I’m here as part of a small international group of journalists invited by the government to see it for the first time. Indeed, this area in northwestern Saudi Arabia that no one’s ever heard of is being transformed into a showstopping destination for art, culture, and heritage. Star-power cuisine isn’t the only thing to put AlUla on the international tourist map.
#Maraya alula mac#
Sprouting dramatically from the vast arid landscape, Maraya shimmers like a mirage, as surreal as the AlUla region that surrounds it.Īs we nibble truffled mac ‘n’ cheese, steak tartare with caviar, and squid from the Red Sea, we celebrate the opening of Maraya Social, the concert hall’s open-air rooftop restaurant by British Michelin-starred chef Jason Atherton who wants to “put AlUla on the map as a foodie destination.”
On a velvety star-studded night in the middle of the Arabian Desert, I join a glittering group of VIPs in a venue just as dazzling - the Maraya Concert Hall, the largest mirrored building in the world.
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