Todays guide was a Swedish lady named Julia who is living in the UAE with her Swedish husband and 2 children. We would eventually find out quite a lot about why the family moved here and with some some interesting observations about life in Sweden vs life in UAE. But the main part of the day was taken up seeing some of the spectacular sights in this city driven by Julia's enthusiasm and Nina's curiosity.

The first visit of the day was to Sheikh Zayed Grand Moque. The project to build this place was started in 1994 by Sheikh Zayed bin Saltan Al Nahyan, the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi, and the first president of the UAE, but unfortunatey he did not live to see it's completion. His vision (we were told) was of a temple in which members of all religions could pray. For details of the place please click the link above, failing that look at the photos below.

Second on our list today was a visit to Heritage Village where we got a small peek at the tranditional life style of people from this area. Before the discovery of oil their most rewarding busines was pearl diving.

We had a buffet lunch at a downtown hotel as part of the tour. We invited Julia to join us so that the conversation about the contrast between Sweden and UAE could contnue. In summary her motivation for her and her children deciding to join her husband in the UAE permanently was physical safety. In her view Sweden now has a serious violence issue with youths as young as 13 carrying guns, whereas she had, on many visits to the UAE, observed a very low incidence of even petty crime.

It is worth noting that the UAE applies a version of Sharia Law to all citizens, Dubai applies Sharia Law to visitors as well, while Abu Dhabi has a form of more Western justice for visitors.

After lunch we made a visit to Qasar Al Watan, named The Palace of the Nation is the presidential palace for Abu Dhabi and was completed in 2017. No one lives inn the vast building complex as it is used primarily for state visits and meetings with VIPs. The first 5 pictures below are of Qasar Al Watan.

The second last photo below is of the foyer in the Palace Hotel and the last is a city scape photograph from the driveway of the Palace Hotel.