9 Hidden Gems in Manama, Bahrain
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Travel advisory: Bahrain is currently a participant in the 2026 regional conflict involving Iran, and Manama has sustained direct strikes, including a drone strike on a hotel in the city. Governments including the US State Department and the UK FCDO currently advise extra caution or against travel to Bahrain. Check your government’s current advisory before booking anything. This list is for a future trip, not one right now.
The National Museum and Al Fateh Mosque get all the attention, fairly. These nine are the stops that don’t make the standard list but reward the extra effort, mostly clustered around Bahrain’s Dilmun-era history and its old pearling towns.
1. Saar
A compact, excavated Dilmun-era town covering roughly 2.5 hectares, with a solstice-aligned temple and dozens of recovered seals. It’s obscure, genuinely archaeological rather than curated for tourists, and pairs well with A’ali and Qal’at al-Bahrain for a full “Dilmun day.”
2. A’ali Pottery Workshops
Beyond the Dilmun Burial Mounds themselves (the UNESCO-listed site), A’ali is a working pottery town where workshops sell direct from the source. A hands-on stop, not just a photo of mounds from a distance.
3. Beit Al Quran
An Islamic-arts museum in Hoora most visitors skip entirely: around 10,000 books and manuscripts, including a Qur’an fragment from roughly 700 CE and a Latin translation from 955 CE. Free, 30-45 minutes.
4. Old Muharraq Beyond the Pearling Path
Once you’ve walked the official Pearling Path, keep going. Muharraq holds the last hand-built dhow shipyard in the country, Arad Fort, and a general old-town texture the main path only samples.
5. Riffa Fort
A cliff-top fort rebuilt in the early 1800s on older foundations, birthplace of a former ruler of Bahrain. Far less visited than Qal’at al-Bahrain, with its own quiet appeal.
6. Tubli Bay
Bahrain’s honest urban-nature spot: surviving mangroves and a Ramsar-listed wetland (since 1997) that’s a genuine birding site, even though the bay itself has shrunk under reclamation. Not pristine, but real.
7. Jebel Dukhan
Bahrain’s highest point at just 134 metres, and the site of the country’s first oil well, which struck in June 1932, the first oil find in the Arab Gulf. It’s a drive-up viewpoint, not a hike, but the history is the draw.
8. Bahrain National Museum’s Hall of Dilmun Graves
Even people who visit the museum often rush past this hall. It has an actual relocated burial mound with grave goods from A’ali, the best single explainer for the third UNESCO site before you go see the real mounds.
9. Al Jasra and Bin Matar House
Smaller heritage houses tied to traditional Bahraini domestic life and handicrafts; specifics on hours and current status vary, so check locally before making a special trip.
Getting to These
Most of these gems sit outside easy walking distance of central Manama. A rental car via discovercars.com covers Saar, A’ali, Riffa Fort, and Jebel Dukhan in a single day, since the whole island is only about 50km end to end. Check the current official travel advisory before booking anything.
For the headline sights these gems complement, see the things to do guide or the day trips guide .