Dubai - Saturday 3rd August

Today we ventured away from the skyscrapers and went to old Dubai where it all began!  We jumped on the Metro to get there and had to walk about 5 minutes to get to our first stop and we were sweltering by the time we got there!!

Firstly we went to the Dubai Museum which is located inside the City's oldest building - the Al Fahidi Fort which was built in 1787.  The Museum was very interesting and gave you a good history of Dubai - the first part of the Museum was outside where it showed you the types of houses the Dubai natives lived in many years ago.

Outside the Dubai Museum

One of the old houses that they used to live in - I am squinting as the sun was so bright!

 After looking outside you go down in the basement of the fort where it is nice and cool!  Firstly you enter a video room which depicts Dubai from before the discovery of oil in the 1960s to the current day.  You then move on to different galleries which show you how life was like in the pre-oil era including a bustling souk.

Showing a souk in the pre-oil days

Life-like models showing how life used to be in Dubai (man nearest the camera looks deranged!)

The latest fashion in Dubai - not sure if it will suit me

After looking around the museum we jumped in a taxi to the Heritage House which shows you a renovated 1890 house which belonged to a wealthy pearl merchant but it was closed when we got there!  So we wandered around the streets and took in the sights of people going about their everyday business which was interesting, and we ended up walking down one of the streets that sell spices and the smell was lovely!

One of the streets in Old Dubai - you can see a tower of one of the mosques

After that we went back to the apartment for some lunch (as we couldn't have anything to eat or drink whilst out because of Ramadan) and then relaxed in the afternoon.  This evening we had tickets booked to go up the Burj Khalifa Tower so we jumped on the Metro back to Dubai Mall.  As we were walking from the Dubai Mall Metro Station to the Dubai Mall (which is about a 15/20 minute walk although thankfully inside!) we could see our hotel.

Our hotel in in the middle of the picture with the big square and spike on the top

You have to book in advance as it gets full up very quickly and unfortunately today was a little bit hazy so although the views from the 124th floor observation gallery were amazing we couldn't see in the distance but it was definitely worth going up.

Views from the observation gallery on the 124th Floor of the Burg Khalifa

Looking up from the 124th floor - there is another 40 floors above us!

As we had booked the 7pm slot we were all provided with Iftar boxes which contained water, a biscuit with some dates in, and chocolate covered dates.  This is for those people who have been fasting all day - Iftar is the time when they can break their fast and traditionally they do this with dates and water (followed by a proper meal afterwards!). Of course we hadn't been fasting but were happy to join in with tradition!

Our Iftar box

After our visit we stopped off at a local restaurant for a steak dinner and then back home to bed for the working day tomorrow (on a Sunday!).