New stars in THE EAST

MAGICAL OMAN

Presenter Charlotte Hawkins falls for the gentle allure of this beautiful country bordering the Arabian Sea.

I had thought Oman was the best undiscovered secret holiday location with all the right ingredients – guaranteed sunshine, stunning scenery, welcoming people, good food, and with a direct flight time of just seven hours. How wrong could I be? It turned out to be not so secret after all, for as soon as I started telling people where we were off to, it seems they’d either already been, had a friend who was going, or had a hankering to go.

So what is it that’s making Oman the latest go-to destination? For us it was the sunshine all year round – plus, I wanted to try somewhere new, but didn’t want to spend too long on a plane. A place where we could flop on a sunlounger while our seven-year-old played in the pool, but also have interesting things to see and do on our doorstep.

Hotel heaven

Our hotel was on the outskirts of the capital Muscat, just 25 minutes from