Pictures of Thula

In 2007 I worked in Yemen, a ruggedly beautiful country, and one of the few places left in the world where you actually feel you are going back in time to the Middle Ages and can see scenes straight out of the Tales of the Arabian Nights.

One of my favourite places there was the fortified town of Thula in the Haraz Mountains, where there is some magnificent, traditional architecture. Thula is an ancient city, named after Thula bin Lubakha Al-Hemiari, who lived here two thousand years ago.

There is a fortress on top of Al-Ghurab Mountain and a wall around the city, so you will enter it through one of the seven city gates. Its strong fortifications enabled it to repel the invading Ottoman Turks for more than three centuries. The houses of Thula are mostly 5 to 7 storeys high and have beautiful carved exteriors and colourful windows, known as qamereya