This palatial retreat in Bahrain might just be the Gulf’s most lavish resort

Drive about 45 minutes into the desert south of Manama, and the Raffles Al Areen Palace Bahrain appears like a mirage. The resort's bone-white watchtowers rise out from gardens ringed by date palms and ancient olive trees, behind which a sprawling village of courtyard villas unfurls into a veritable oasis in southern Bahrain's sparsely vegetated landscape.

Inside Raffles Al Areen Palace Bahrain

The first iteration of this palatial retreat opened in 2006, and when Raffles took over the reins in 2019, it set out on a top-to-bottom refurbishment overseen by architecture firm Smallwood and Bahrain-based IDA. ‘The guest’s journey is built around the creation of a “Secret Garden”,’ says IDA co-founder and project lead Shazad Azam. ‘With the location as a profound source of inspiration, we built the narrative around a worldly traveller venturing to distant lands and returning with a treasure trove of seeds.’

Those metaphorical seeds have flourished into, quite possibly, one of the region's finest resorts. Once you step through the hand-carved wooden gates, the lobby opens into a conservatory of babbling fountains, hanging gardens and gleaming floors from book-matched Calacatta marble and black Marquina stone. Sunlight seeping through the mashrabiya screens bathes the space in light, while potted palms and rattan furnishing bring the outdoors in.

The villas, of which there are 78 scattered around the palm-lined grounds, are equally palatial. Ranging from one to three bedrooms with at least 400 sqm. of living space, each one surrounds a private courtyard with a temperature-controlled swimming pool and four-poster daybeds shaded with curtains billowing in the desert breeze. A private majlis lounge and dining area each take over a separate by-room on either side of the courtyard's entrance gate, while the U-shaped floor plan of the main villa – all mashrabiya latticework, horseshoe arches and double-height ceilings – offers plenty of space for a lofty bedroom and a fully kitted-out bathroom that feels like a personal spa.

Those familiar with the Raffles brand will clock plenty of its hallmarks. The resort's Writer’s Lounge, a fixture in almost every Raffles outpost, has been given a Bahraini spin with local antiques, coffee table books on Islamic art, and a map of the country laid in 24k gold. Look up, and you'll find a poem by Bahraini poet Ahmed Al Khalifa dancing over the ceiling's cornice in swirling Arabic calligraphy. Next door, the breezy Palma restaurant serves up a Bahrain Sling (a pomegranate-heavy riff on the iconic cocktail invented at Raffles' original outpost in Singapore), and the resort's nothing-is-impossible butler service proves just why Raffles' butlers set the industry benchmark.

Bahrain's tiny size means that the entire country is within easy reach: you can dive for pearls around the oyster beds on the northern coast, or walk the recently launched Pearling Path, a 3.5 kilometre-long trail lined with architectural works from Valerio Olgiati and Anne Holtrop. The roaring supercars on the Bahrain International F1 Circuit sit within earshot, and the canvas-shaded terrace of the resort's Le Jardin restaurant looks out over the Al Areen Wildlife Reserve, home to the Arabian oryx and Nubian ibex.

But with villas so grand and lavishly fitted, there's no shame in not leaving your personal oasis at all.

Raffles Al Areen Palace Bahrain is located at Building 2046, Manama, Bahrain, raffles.com