Travel: Manama Souq

The Manama Souq – it’s an open air market in the capital city of Bahrain. It’s full of goods, services, and eats. Oh, and gold – a lot of gold! We visited in the afternoon after checking out the Bahrain Fort. We browsed a few stores, but didn’t buy anything. In fact, I only bought one tangible thing on our whole trip to the Persian Gulf. Okay, let’s check out some photos of the souq.

Manama Souq

First, know that a lot of the shops close for lunch, usually somewhere between 11am and 3pm. The nice thing is they sort of alternate, so if you’re walking through at around 1pm, some market places will be open. If you’re here to visit for the food, you’ll for sure find something. Our Uber driver recommended about 3 different places, yet we had our hearts set on an Indian restaurant I found through hunting on Google.

The nicer, more expensive shops are up front, near the entrance of the souq. Dive deeper, though, to get the full experience. We spent about 2 hours here, which included a break for lunch.

The Manama Souq is a great place to spend a few hours – the shops are neat, the food choices are endless, and the narrow streets offer some much needed shade.

Also, don’t be afraid to pop into remote corners, as long as you’re with a travel buddy!

You can see below that after lunch the area we visited had quite a few closed shops, it was still fun to check out the area, though. So many neat finds.

Well, that’s the Manama Souq in Bahrain. Check it out if you’re there. Manama is quite a smaller place compared to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or Doha, however, it’s still worth checking out.

Happy travels – see you soon.