Bahla is the centre of Black Magic in Oman, but it was for its famous centuries-old tradition of pottery-making and immense, impressive fort that we visited.
We visited the pottery of Abdullah bin Hamadan Al Adwi in Bahla, one of the oldest Omani potteries still producing exquisite handmade pots. Father and sons work together in a tradition going back thousands of years in their family pottery which is itself hundreds of years old. Their pots are so celebrated that the Sultan and his wife have visited and she has cornered the market for all of their large pots, which are beautiful.
Alongside the domed traditional kilns they also have a modern gas kiln and an electric kiln.
As well as pottery, Bahla is famous as the centre of Black Magic in Oman! In the past it was the centre for Sufi mysticism so the legends of magical activities probably stem from this.
We moved on to the souk, which was very quiet, but where our guide Kareem discovered a shop where he could have his photograph taken with the traditional khanjar and rifles. He was much taken with this.
The fortress at Bahla, at the foot of the Jebel Akhdar mountains, is immense and dominates the town. It is thought that a defensive structure has stood here for over 1500 years, though what we see today is between 600 and 900 years old. After it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 it was closed for extensive renovations which were completed in 2012. A very good information leaflet is provided for visitors.
Kareem explained the fort's history then left us to wander for as long as we wanted, which turned out to be well over an hour.
The fortress is a maze of interconnected rooms and passages - an intruder without insider knowledge would have great difficulty finding their way through it!
The fort and settlement, with the adjacent mosque, were a mud-walled oasis in the Omani desert. The falaj gravity-driven irrigation system, bringing water from natural springs in channels many kilometres long, ensured a reliable water supply for both domestic and agricultural use.
The fort is probably pre-Islamic in origin, though it is thought that Ahmed bin Halal was the first to rule from here in the 10th century. The structure of the fort as it appears today, however, was created during the 12th to the 15th centuries when the Banu Nabhan tribe dominated this area, making Bahla their capital.
Roughly triangular in shape, it occupies an area of approximately 9,000 sq m with walls and buildings mostly constructed with mud bricks, though water-resistant mortar, stone blocks, and palm trunks were also used in a some places.
Eight towers provide a wide view of the surrounding area and the main entrance was equipped with murder holes down which boiling date juice, water or molasses could be poured onto invaders. The towers and walls were equipped with loopholes to allow defenders protected points for firing onto invaders, either with arrows or firearms.
Seven internal wells supplied water for bathing, drinking and cooking.
There were two mosques, stables and barracks, a residence for the commander of the fort and a 19th century residence for the governor and his family called Bait al-Hadith - Modern House.
The citadel, al-Qasabah, is the oldest part of the fort, a massive rectangular walled structure with a tower at each corner, the walls up to 2m thick.
It stands at the south-eastern corner of the fort on rock foundations up to 15m in height and was virtually self-sufficient, able to operate independently of the rest of the fort if necessary. The smaller mosque was located here, as well as wells.
Through the entrance to al-Qasabah the rooms are double or triple height, soaring spaces with tall ogee arches leading through into the rest of the building.
The small mosque inside al-Qasabah is the most intricately decorated of all the rooms we saw.
The fortress is a fascinating place to explore - the labyrinthine layout and defensive arrangements, the spacious quarters, especially the huge tall rooms in al-Qasabah, with their beautiful old doors and the shelving and pegs that are ubiquitous in old buildings in Oman, are wonderfully evocative of the lives lived here.