NOV 11, 16 .. AL AIN, ABU DHABI EMIRATE, UAE
As you can see in the map below, the City of Al Ain is located South of Dubai and East of Abu Dhabi.
These three cities form a triangle.
Al Ain is part of the Abu Dhabi Emirate.
Several days ago, Alfred, a good friend here in Dubai, asked me if I would like to go to Al Ain and attend a meeting with him. Of course I ‘jumped-at-the-chance’ to see more of the UAE and off we went yesterday, the 10th of November, to Al Ain.
We left Dubai at 1:30PM and were back at 10:30PM. The 86-mile drive each way took us a little over an hour and a half.
Not too many of you will ever, in this lifetime, visit Al Ain nor experience the highway that connects it with Dubai. Even if you come to Dubai or to Abu Dhabi, your chances of a side-trip to Al Ain are relatively small.
So with no further ado, below are my photos from my trip to Al Ain yesterday.
I did not just find the things we saw and did. Oh NO! Alfred was my tour guide par excellence!
The first two photos are of Dubai as we drove out of town. I never seem to tire of beautiful, modern, buildings.
The Burj Khalifa you see below is the tallest structure in the world.
We are now ‘on-the-road’ South from Dubai to Al Ain.
I shot more-than-one photo to finally capture the below photo as we roared down the freeway doing about 87 miles per hour (140 kilometers per hour).
I shot the below photo from the edge of a gasoline station to show you that there is some very ‘mundane’scenery’ here as there is everywhere. That is the desert out there.
Back on the 4-lane freeway.
I captured the below photo to show you we were right on the Oman border.
The red balloons point to the Oman / UAE border. See our old friend Muscat to the right.
We have arrived in Al Ain.
Nice, very nice, tree lined roads.
The below section of the street we entered into Al Ain on was so beautiful that we stopped so that I could try to capture it in a few photos.
Below are three photos that I snapped to ‘pan’ the view from left (top photo) to center to right.
Below is my parting view of this area of Al Ain that I snapped in the vicinity of the magnificent Jahli Park. After the photos of the central part of Al Ain that I am going to show below, I will show Jahli Park in some detail.
I proudly share with you a few photos of the central part of Al Ain, in the Abu Dhabi Emirate, of the United Arab Emirates.
I do not know, I have no clue, what the below building is.
THIS I KNOW.
I could not stop snapping photos of it as we motored slowly past it.
Are we looking at an enormous bank of black solar panels above and below?
JAHLI PARK is a very nice park. The Al Jahili Fort is located within the grounds of the park. The name of the park (Jahli) and the fort (Jahili) are indeed spelled differently.
Into Jahli Park we walk.
One of several playgrounds for the children.
JAHILI FORT.
A last look back at the fort.
I feel so blessed to be here seeing what I am seeing in the United Arab Emirates.
JAHLI PARK. I return to the park itself after showing the fort above.
If you look closely at the above two photos, you see a myrid of small white flowers that I show up close below.
In the far distance below can you see Jahili Fort.
STARBUCKS.
Starbucks in Jahli Park! Oh Come On You Must Be Kidding Us Captain!
Technically Starbucks is NOT inside of Jahli Park but it tightly abuts the park.
I love the reflection visible on the glass window wall of Starbucks. Do any of you recognize what you are seeing? You are seeing the beautiful street scene I showed you up at the beginning of our visit to Al Ain.
Will you just look at the automobiles waiting their turn!
AL AIN PALACE MUSEUM. This attraction was totally free-of-charge.
Time to bid a fond farewell to the Al Ain Palace Museum.
“Cap?” .. “Yes Alfred?” .. “We never ate lunch!” .. “Let’s go eat Alfred! Do you have a favorite place here in Al Ain Alfred?” .. “I sure have Cap!”
“Alfred?” .. “Yes Cap.” .. “Alfred they do not have enough of this garlic sauce in the kitchen for me!”
The olives did not last all that long!
An Arabic Fattoush Salad.
Mixed Grill Deluxe! And I mean DELUXE!
More Please. Ever More Please. Thank You.
In the top right of the below photo is a dish of meat and hummus.
All through dinner we were eating the garlic sauce. Arabic Fattoush Salads are phenomenal!
“That is that Alfred! I never need to eat ever again.”
It was bright daylight when we went into the Golden Sheep Restaurant.
OUR MEETING. The meeting was, after all, the reason we went to Al Ain.
I don’t believe that I have ever attended a more elegant meeting. You all need to come on over to the Mid East for a month or two.
Do you remember this most interesting building that I showed above?
Our Oasis Hospital was across the street! I snapped the two below photos.
Kind of nifty huh?
Alfred? How do I ever adequately thank you for this November 10, 2016?
Wow! Cap
Epilogue: This somewhat enormous Post did not, I repeat, did NOT get away from me. I wanted to show you Al Ain in one Post. I am running at a pretty rapid pace and I don’t want to fall too far behind in my Posts. Tomorrow I head for Ras Al Khaiman, another, totally-new-to-me area of the United Arab Emirates where I will be spending four nights.
That is that says baba kaps.
- NOV 10, 16 .. MORE TRAVEL? .. IT’S WHAT I DO ..
- NOV 12, 16 .. RAS AL KHAIMAH .. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES ..
What a fun post! Nice, nice tour of Al Ain … looks like a lovely city. Beautiful park, exquisite interior room in the hospital where your meeting was, fabulous looking Fattoush Salad and the garlic sauce made my mouth water … I KNOW how wonderful that is! Nice that you got daylight and night photos. Again, I cannot say it often enough, I LOVE Andrej’s maps!!! Hugs. Patti
Al Ain IS INDEED a Lovely city. I will never forget our Fattoush Salads in Royal Oak some several summers ago. The garlic sauce is so wonderful. I too love Andrej’s maps. I too love you too. Cap now in Ras Al Khaimah.
This is really a fun post. What a great tour of Al Ain! It looks like a lovely city. The park looks expansive and interesting. The building that intrigued you intrigues me! Your lunch at Golden Sheep Restaurant made my mouth water … especially the fattoush salad and the garlic sauce. Nice that you were able to get both daytime and nighttime shots of Al Ain. And, I cannot say it often enough, I LOVE Andrej’s maps!!! Hugs. Patti
I love it you think this is a fun Post. Thanks to Alfred I did have a great tour of Al Ain in the time we had there. Fascinating building yes indeed! I may return with Alfred to check it out. Smiles and Love .. Cap now in Ras Al Khaimah.
Saturday, November 12, 2016 – 11:00 am – So Cal
Hi Cap,
That was a great post with photos along your drive to Al Ain! There’s no doubt, a very clean country, lots of beautiful landscaping and very beautiful structures of all kind!
A note you will remember when you visited Apple Valley on one of your previous visits, and I took you to a meeting place located in a trailer park, and you said, “wait here” as you went in to case the place – and you returned in about 1 minute and said lets go – the meeting room a small “box”, smokey, chairs for about 5 folks! What a comparison to the “palace”, i.e. conference room in Al Ain!
Your lovely meal reminded me of our meal in Frankfurt where on a few occasions we eat at a Balken restaurant and had their specialty, which of course was the “Balken Plate”, a great mixture of food similar to your grill plate. That was a huge lunch you had! How did you manage to stay awake for your meeting! Ha!
Along your drive on the freeway, I notice that there appeared to be street lighting in the medium – was there lighting along the freeway for the 90 mile length?
It’s great that you are meeting friends and are able to visit so many nice places which normally are not possible when you are traveling alone!
Keep up the fun and nice meals!
zilla
100% street lighting all the way. ON all streets. It is unreal. Zum Adler in Frankfurt. What memories we have of Zum Adler.
Thanks so much for following along here.
More later ‘Zilla. Smiles .. Cap