Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi is the capital that Dubai's noise lets people forget, and it is the quieter and, in two buildings, the greater of the two: the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, finished in 2007 on the island's southern approach — eighty-two domes of white marble, a courtyard of inlaid flowers, the largest hand-knotted carpet and one of the largest chandeliers on Earth, open to everyone and at its best when the floodlights come on at dusk —, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi on Saadiyat island, opened in 2017 under Jean Nouvel's perforated dome, where the light falls in a rain of stars over a collection that puts the world's civilisations side by side. Around them the city on its island: the Corniche, eight kilometres of promenade along the Gulf; Qasr Al Hosn, the fort of the 1760s that was the town, restored as its memory; the Emirates Palace and Qasr Al Watan, the presidential palace opened to visitors in 2019; the Etihad towers; the mangroves of the eastern channel where the kayaks go; Al Maryah's financial towers; and, across the water, Yas island with Ferrari World, the F1 circuit and the theme parks, and Saadiyat's beach. Al Ain's oasis is an hour and a half inland, Liwa's dunes two hours south, Dubai an hour and a half up the coast.

The traveller comes by the airport on Yas's side of the water or up from Dubai, and gives the capital two days: the Grand Mosque in the last hour of the afternoon — covered as the desk asks, shoes off, the courtyard, the prayer hall, the carpet — and again from outside as the lights come; the Louvre the next morning, three hours under the dome and a coffee on the water; the Corniche on foot or by bicycle in the evening, from the Founder's Memorial to the breakwater; Qasr Al Hosn and its story; Qasr Al Watan's marble; a kayak among the mangroves at dawn or a beach afternoon on Saadiyat; and, for those so inclined, Yas — the fastest roller-coaster on Earth, or the circuit's night. Dinner is Emirati at a heritage table or anything on Earth in the hotels.

The Guide's honesty: Abu Dhabi is a car city and its distances are real — the mosque, the Louvre and Yas are twenty minutes apart by taxi, and the taxis are honest and metered —; the summer is for the museums and the malls; the mosque's dress code is exact and lent at the door, and photographs are welcome; the emirate is safe, orderly and expensive in the hotels and cheap in the cafeterias where the city eats; and the mosque at dusk, white going gold going blue with the pools reflecting it, is one of the great sights built in this century, which is why the Guide keeps this page beside Dubai's, and a little above it.