Book Abu Dhabi attraction tickets

Abu Dhabi occupies a position unlike any other Gulf capital. Built across a series of islands where the Arabian Peninsula meets the Persian Gulf, it carries the weight of being the UAE's seat of federal government while simultaneously reinventing itself as one of the region's most ambitious cultural and leisure destinations. The city's skyline along the Corniche, that sweeping eight-kilometre waterfront promenade, frames a place that is simultaneously ancient in its Bedouin roots and relentlessly forward-looking in its architecture and ambition.

The island of Saadiyat has become the clearest expression of that ambition. The Saadiyat Cultural District is home to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, whose extraordinary dome of interlocking geometric panels casts a rain of light across galleries that trace human civilisation across continents and centuries. Nearby, the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi has opened to considerable attention, and a combined museum pass covering the Louvre, the Natural History Museum, and the forthcoming Zayed National Museum offers a way to move through the district at a considered pace rather than rushing a single institution. For visitors whose interests run across archaeology, art, and the Emirates' own story, Saadiyat rewards a full day rather than an afternoon.