Highlights of Abu Dhabi

Exploring Abu Dhabi on my way to Europe

On my way to Europe, I had a little over a day layover in Abu Dhabi. For those of you who don't know, there was a bit of a story to how this happened.

I was researching flights from Australia to Vienna (Austria) and comparing different airlines, trying to find the best price. When I was looking on Etihad's website, I noticed there was one flight itinary that was significantly cheaper than all the other options. The catch was that it involved a 21 hour stop over in Abu Dhabi, along with a 3:00 am flight. The early flight didn't bother me too much, but I thought that if I am in Abu Dhabi for 21 hours maybe I could increase that to give myself a little more leeway to properly explore the city. The website for Etihad has a really nice feature to automatically select a 1, 2, or 3 day stop over in Abu Dhabi, I selected the 1 day stop over and the result was a slightly cheaper flight, but now with a full 24 hours in Abu Dhabi. I would arrive 11:30 pm on Wednesday the 27th of September and then fly out at 3:00 am on Friday the 39th of September. It wasn't perfect, but I had the full Thursday to explore the city.

First Impressions

Abu Dhabi is insanely hot. At night time, the coolest time, the temperature was still around 30 °C. So while I did explore some out door areas, I mostly went to indoor places where there was air conditioning.

Highlights

This was one of the first places I went. It was a heritage village showcasing a reconstruction of a traditional desert village.

This was inside the Marina Mall. I had a coffee and breakfast here. The entire place was air conditioned and quite comfortable compared to the sweltering heat outside.

The next destination I went to was the UAE Presidential Palace. This building was majestic, and grand on a scale I had never experienced before. These pictures don't really do it justice to just how massive the interior is. It felt like the inside of this building could have its own weather system. My one regret for the day was that I could not spend more time fully exploring the place.

I spent most of my afternoon at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. It was actually a really awesome Museum where the exhibits went throughout human history, starting with artefacts from the early empires of Babylon and Egypt through to modern art. I won't share any pictures of the art as many talented photographers would have done a far better job than I can and I also think you should just go see it for yourself 😄. I will say that if you do go, make sure to look out for the map room, that exhibit was my favourite part and I spent a good 10 minutes staring at a single map.

My final destination was the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Similar to the Presidential Palace, this building had a sense of grandeur, but where the palace was dominating, this mosque felt inviting, with a much stronger attention to beauty. I personally loved all the floral imagery worked into the marble floors, on the walls, and on the pillars. I walked through in the late afternoon and while maybe not perfect, I felt like the lighting was nice enough to capture some great images. This was my favourite destination in Abu Dhabi and I have to give a huge thanks to Andrew Bradly for telling me about it.

The actual entrance to the mosque was quite a distance away, where I had to scan in with a QR code from a booking I made earlier. However, there was no need to walk through the hot sun to get to the mosque because the entire walk from the entrance was indoors in an underground corridor. After I had walked through the Grand Mosque I was quite hungry and when I returned to the entrance there was a small underground mall type area. I don't know exactly what it was but there was a more traditional restaurant that looked interesting. They, amazingly, had a few vegetarian options and I ended up having some Vegetable Machboos that was very delicious. They also gave me a huge plate that probably would have been enough for two. I certainly ate my fill.

After dinner I returned to the hotel so I could get some rest before my early morning flight.

Thanks for reading – Edward

Written 15th of October 2023