Well… here we go again. Another day out exploring Abu Dhabi. Today we have quite a few things planned.. so better get going! We go catch another bus, and in no time we’re at Qasr Al Watan, the presidential palace of the Emirates.

This is a working palace, which means that no one lives there, it is “just” a palace for people/dignitaries to be received in. So, as long as no one important is there, it is open to the public to visit. The palace also has wings that are dedicated to the President, Vice-President, and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi behind the main building. Probably can’t visit those? Either way, we go in the main entrance of the complex and catch a shuttle bus to the main entrance to the palace.

Like many things we have seen lately, it is hard to explain/convey just how BIG this palace is. It is absolutely massive. Very impressive when you first arrive. But it doesn’t stop there, let’s take a step inside.

Inside is just as impressive as outside. There are absolutely HUGE spaces, what else would you expect from the view from outside and from the title of “palace”? This is just the entryway…

And then you can also visit all the side rooms (sometimes they are closed). First one? For press conferences.

And then it is into the main area. This is the biggest area of the whole place. So impressive.

And another little exhibit was the House of Knowledge, a place to showcase Arabian scholarship. If you have been following this trip so far, you will see that we like this sort of thing after our visits to various national museums, libraries, and art museums. So here we add to that collection.

Then we walked and walked and walked. Each angle of the palace giving you such beautiful views. The palace was built in a traditional Arabian design, filled with symmetry and all. You can probably see some similarities with buildings we have seen in Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman.

The other places we visited were the Great Hall, Presidential Banquet, and the Spirit of Collaboration.

The last one is a very important room for the UAE and beyond. In this room there are a lot of very important meetings such as the Federal Supreme Council of the UAE, the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, the League of Arab States, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Your eyes may have been drawn to the chandelier in the middle of this last room, we know ours were. And then we were even further impressed. Look at this diagram. A human can actually fit inside of this.

Then it was onto the room for Presidential Gifts. As you can imagine, there are a lot, and there are a lot of them from all over the world. Some are more symbolic, like the key to Gaza, while others are historical like this Phoenician vase from Lebanon from about 7,000 years ago.

Our final stop was The Power of Words. We had already seen it when we entered the House of Knowledge, but there was a line of people waiting to take pictures, so we didn’t wait. Now we were able to take our picture quickly and even talk to the palace photographer who was working. She was very interested in why I was taking a selfie here.

The quote is a quote of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and says “Wealth is not money and oil. Wealth lies in the people and it is worthless if not dedicated to serve the people.”

And with that, we’re done! Of course we snapped some more pictures, but we will just show you some from outside as we wandered through the gardens before getting back on the shuttle to the main entrance.

Well, here we had to also make a decision. Our ticket includes “the Palace at Night” light show… but it starts at 7. It is 3:30. Do we wait around? We go back to the main entrance to ask if we can enter again, but it’s not possible. We would have to buy a new ticket (we believe that it is at a reduced price as it is “only” light show). That’s fine, rather not wait that long, we do have other things we can see. Off we go!

My partner is getting pretty tired already… hopefully it’s not something permanent. With our last full day in the UAE, we need to keep going.

As we walk to our next location, we walk by the Emirates Palace. We kind of made a mistake here. We thought this was a fancy hotel, we didn’t realize that you could get tours of it as well. We would have gone in had we known, but instead we just have this picture from afar.

Then we continued walking along the Corniche, further than we had ever come before. We got closer to what we had taken pictures of from the beach, but we also got to take in the Abu Dhabi skyline. Definitely recommend coming for a walk along this side of the city.

Then we got to our second goal of the day.

It was a nice little “village” showing traditions of Abu Dhabi. It included small museums, various buildings, an “ancient archaeological site” (recreation), and a desert homes area with animals. Lots to see and do.

Sadly for us, the traditional works were not being shown… so we could only take pictures of the work, without anyone showing us how it’s done. Not sure if it was the time or day or what, but double check before you come.

And then it was done. It was a quick visit.

We continued on a little bit further to a look out point to enjoy the views of Abu Dhabi. It was absolutely full of people doing the same. Picnics, games, and people just taking pictures. We even met some Emiratis that were taking pictures of the moon and skyline as well.

Well… my partner is more and more tired… so it’s time to head back. We go walking back towards the Marina Mall where we buy some food and catch the bus back to the hotel.

Time to rest so that we can continue our trip tomorrow! But for now, good night from Abu Dhabi!