Three months in Europe

Snapshot
Where Abu Dhabi - Half day City Tour
Weather - Hot... 46°C - gasp!
Steps - 11000 or 7km

After a good breakfast we were picked up from the hotel to firstly visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Before even entering, there are very strict rules regarding dress (although it really only applied to women who had to be covered had to toe with head scarf, long sleeves and long pants/ skirt - men only had to have their legs covered). So, I'm fully kitted out with black scarf and black dress because it was considered my 3/4 shirt and pants were not long enough (yet the guide had a t-shirt on). Brad did take one photo of me wearing all this garb, but unfortunately, due to a mishap when we were trying to transfer the photos from the camera to the tablet, all the pictures were deleted off the SD card. Who did that shall remain nameless (it was Brad), but it was a lesson learnt and we won't do it again. Apart from the photos of the mosque, any other pictures we took today were not really keepers anyway and we figured we could always revisit here when we stop on the way back. Have included some images from stock photos.

Anyway, back to the mosque. The mosque is the largest in the UAE and was only completed in 2007, taking about 11 years to build. The mosque is large enough to accommodate over 40,000 worshippers, while the main prayer hall can hold over 7,000. It boasts the world's largest hand knotted carpet, made by approx 1200 Iranian women and took 2 years to finish. There are seven imported chandeliers from Germany that incorporate millions of Swarovski crystals. The largest chandelier is the second largest known chandelier inside a mosque, the third largest in the world and weighs about 12 tonnes (and cost around USD$8 million, as did the carpet) . The thousand odd columns that line the courtyard are made from marble that is inlaid with semiprecious gemstones such as amethyst, mother of pearl and lapis lazuli in floral designs. It really was a beautiful place.

After the mosque we visited a date market (who knew there were so many varieties of dates), followed by the cultural centre where we learnt about the development of Abu Dhabi from a small, poor region only 50 odd years ago to one of the wealthiest cities in the world. Finally we visited the Heritage Centre which demonstrated what the area was like before the discovery of oil and the source of their wealth.

This ends our visit to Abu Dhabi, tomorrow we fly to Amsterdam to commence our European trip.Read more