Visit of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
Quick breakfast at Nolu’s Café… Eggs Benedict, yum.. and then off to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.
I noticed that the entrance of the mosque had changed compared to 9 years ago. We now had to go through a shopping mall before getting to the entrance.
Maxine and I were led to a dressing room to change into an appropriate attire before entering the mosque. 9 Years ago everyone had to wear a black jalabaya. Now there were several colours.
We had decided to go on the guided tour of the mosque, so we could also see it from the inside. It was also worth to get a bit of explanation. We were told that the building could accommodate up to 20,000 persons. The central courtyard an additional 31,000. Very impressive !
The large chandeliers were made of Murano glass. But also other materials like marble and ceramics came from countries all over the world. The idea of the construction came from Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. He was a former president of the United Arab Emirates, wanting to unite the Islamic culture with modern architecture and art. He died before the entire construction had been finished and was buried in the mosque’s courtyard.
The mosque was really stunning ! Where 9 years ago, we were allowed to walk freely over the central courtyard, today this was no longer possible. An itinerary had been established for those that wanted to do an individual visit.
A limited number of stops around the courtyard were created to allow visitors to take pictures. Part was closed for the general public and only open for visitors of the guided tours. The latter, we could really recommend !
The enormous chandeliers in the mosque were cleaned twice a year. We could imagine that that would be a very delicate job…
Last dinner in Abu Dhabi
After our return to the hotel, we went to the Galleria to have lunch. We had already passed the Dai Pad Dong restaurant several times and were looking for an excuse to eat there ;-). Our last lunch… It all looked so delicious and it was very tasty…
Then last pool moments before getting ready for our night out.
Tonight we were going to have dinner with our ex-neighbour who now worked in Abu Dhabi. She had proposed a Lebanese restaurant from which we had a view of the mosque. It was located in the Souk near the Shangri-La hotel. We tried out some new dishes that we had not eaten before and were very satisfied with the choice that had been made.
Then, back to the hotel for packing our bags since we had a transfer to Dubai very early the next morning. It was my fault that we had to get up so early since I had made a mistake when booking the Burj Kalifa visit. I thought I had booked it for the day after our arrival in Dubai, but it turned out to be on the same day. There was no way that we could change our tickets so we had to make sure to be in the Dubai Mall around 11.15am.
The first leg of our United Arab Emirates’ trip, the visit of its capital, was coming to an end and we were very enthusiast about the holiday so far.
