Bringing the United Arab Emirates to You
Dream today – travel tomorrow
We’re bringing the United Arab Emirates to you – offering an escape from reality and hopefully inspiring you to plan your future bucket list adventures.
The United Arab Emirates is a picturesque smorgasbord of landscapes – from expansive deserts, to glistening glass skylines, to traditional Emirati architecture.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the most popular emirates to visit. Dubai is all about glitz and glamour with incredible skyscrapers, luxury hotels, celebrity chef restaurants and fascinating souks. Oil-rich Abu Dhabi is the capital of the UAE and the largest of the seven emirates. It is home to the Louvre Abu Dhabi and also boasts golden sandy beaches and wildlife-filled mangroves.
Lockdown Art
While temporarily closed, Louvre Abu Dhabi is bringing the museum to you by telling stories about their artworks through audio and video via their website and app. In addition, there are some great activities for children on their website. Creative kids can watch the short, fun videos and learn how to make art based on the museum’s collection – such as making a Mondrian-inspired bag, a shadow puppet horse or using their smartphones to give a famous painting a contemporary feel.
Check out all the activities on the Louvre Abu Dhabi website
Lockdown Sounds
The futuristic video for Thunder by Imagine Dragons was shot almost entirely in Dubai. Despite being in black and white, the video manages to capture the beauty of the city with shots of popular areas like Sheikh Zayed Road, Citywalk and Dubai Marina. A large part was filmed in the uber-chic Dubai Design District whose unique architecture lends itself to the sci-fi nature of the video. While we can’t promise you’ll encounter alien contortionists on your next visit to Dubai, you’ll definitely see plenty of Ferraris and awesome architecture!
Lockdown Literature
The Sand Fish is an exciting passion-filled novel written by Dubai-born Maha Gargash about her city at a time when it was on the brink of transformation. Noora, the novel’s protagonist, is a young woman living in rural 1950s Dubai, before the oil industry transformed the city into the affluent metropolis it is today. Her portrayal of rural life, nomads in the mountains and seaside communities offers a fascinating glimpse into a world far removed from the glitz and glamour of Dubai today.
Find The Sand Fish on Amazon here
Lockdown Movies
Pop in some popcorm and get comfy, as one of the most infamous moments in all of cinematic espionage has to be in Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol when Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt scales the 830-metre-high Burj Khalifa, currently the tallest building in the world. Other locations in Dubai that were used in the film include Jumeirah Zabeel Saray on The Palm Jumeirah, Dubai International Financial Centre, and Satwa.
Check out this behind-the-scenes video to see how the stunt was made possible
Lockdown Munchies
Emirati cuisine shares remarkable similarities with cuisines from neighbouring countries, such as Oman and Saudi Arabia, as well as many Middle Eastern and Asian cuisines. With several restaurants in Dubai, including Hell’s Kitchen and Bread Street Kitchen, we turned to celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsay, for this week’s Middle Eastern-inspired recipe. He shows us how to make baclava, a decadently sweet and sticky dessert made of layers of filo with nuts and lots of sugar.