Qasr Al Watan and the Corniche

Qasr Al Watan is a working presidential palace that lets visitors into its halls, and it is built to be walked into slowly. The Great Hall comes first: a dome 37 metres across and 60 metres high, wider than the main dome at the Grand Mosque, with the whole hall worked in the palace’s three colours. Blue stands for the waters of the Gulf, white for purity, yellow for the desert sand. In each corner there is a mirrored cube you can step inside, and from in there the hall repeats itself in every direction.

Beyond the Great Hall, other rooms deal with the country’s past, present and future, and the library and the House of Knowledge hold books and manuscripts for anyone who wants to stay longer. Photographs for personal use are welcome. After dark, Palace in Motion puts on a light show at the palace for about a quarter of an hour.

The city’s own story starts somewhere much smaller. Qasr Al Hosn grew from a watchtower built around 1795 to guard the coastal trade routes and the settlement that was forming on the island. The fort around it became home to the ruling family, then the seat of government and later the national archive, and after more than eleven years of conservation it reopened as a museum in 2018. The displays run from an eighteenth-century fishing and pearling town to the city outside the walls, with objects going back to 6000 BC.

Out on the Corniche breakwater, near Marina Mall, the Heritage Village rebuilds life before oil: a small souk, a mosque and a camp, with potters, glassblowers and weavers at their looms working in front of you.

Then the Corniche itself: eight kilometres of waterfront with separate paths for walking and cycling, and a Blue Flag beach with sections set aside for families and a lifeguard on duty until sunset. Bikes can be hired along the boardwalk. Late afternoon is the time to walk it, when the heat has gone out of the paving and the sea turns silver.

All of it fits into a morning and a little more, which leaves the end of the day for the Grand Mosque as the light goes.

Good to know

• Knees and shoulders covered at the palace, and no flip-flops.
• Bags go through a scanner at the palace. Carry as little as you can.
• Photography for personal use is welcome inside the palace. Wearable cameras are not.
• The light show has its own ticket and its own timing. We check both for your dates.
• The Corniche beach has a lifeguard until sunset and family sections at Gates 2 and 3.
• Opening days at the fort and the Heritage Village differ. We confirm what is open on your dates.