The hook
One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth, a walled old town of tall gingerbread-like tower houses, their brown mud-brick façades iced with white geometric patterns, built up over more than a thousand years.
01Why it's worth it
The old city of Sana'a is one of the architectural wonders of the Islamic world: a dense, walled warren of multi-storey tower houses, some many centuries old, built of rammed earth and fired brick and decorated with intricate white lime tracery around the windows so that the whole townscape looks like rows of decorated gingerbread, glowing in the light. Interspersed are ancient mosques, minarets, bathhouses, and a bustling covered souq, all inhabited continuously for well over a millennium. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a treasure of human building. It is also, tragically, in the middle of a country torn apart by war since 2014, subject to bombing and one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, and travel to Yemen is unsafe and strongly advised against. This entry stands as a record of an irreplaceable place and a hope for its survival and eventual peace, not as an invitation to visit while its people suffer.
02How to experience it
Not now: Yemen is at war, travel is unsafe, and this is here to honour the city's heritage and its people, not to suggest a trip. The most meaningful engagement at present is supporting humanitarian relief and the protection of Yemen's cultural heritage, and hoping for the peace that might one day make the old city safe to see.