Discovering Dubai

Between desert and sea, Dubai dares all the architectural, commercial and sporting audacities, multiplying to infinity offers that love travellers as the promise of a waking dream.

A futuristic and magical emirate

Dubai, which seems to be rushing frantically into the future, offers a different face every day. However, beyond this effervescence, travellers discover a thousand-year-old land forged by the desert and its Bedouin people with commercial traditions. The last challenge of the most famous of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, the construction of Palm Islands, and an artificial palm-shaped island, while the emblematic 7-star hotel Burj-Al-Arab sets its steel and glass sail on an artificial island. But, as you walk through this forest of buildings with blinding walls that house the most beautiful hotels in the world, you will still find the old white coral houses topped with their wind towers that crowd into the picturesque Bastaqya district with its narrow streets lined with bazaars and small restaurants. Visit the Dubai Museum, located in Fort Al Fahidi, and discover a remarkable exhibition recounting the history of the emirate. And in Jumeirah, an archaeological site contains Abbasid remains.

A shopping paradise

With its shopping centers offering products at very attractive prices, Dubai deserves its reputation as a shopping paradise. You have to get lost in the souks, the gold one with its profusion of jewellery is amazing, but also the souk with fish, spices or the market with its oriental magic perfumes. And if you need a little freshness, you can ski down one of the three snow-covered slopes of the Dubai Ski Dome! Here you can do skiing on snow, dune skiing and water skiing in the same day. You can also take a swim in one of the countless swimming pools.... refrigerated. Golf is one of Dubai's other flagship sports with several 18-hole courses including the Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club with its breathtaking club house evoking a dhow, the traditional dhow.

The unique experience of the desert

As soon as you leave the city, the desert and its undulating red sand dunes invite you to unique experiences and discoveries such as the village of Hatta, an oasis on a mountainside with its lush wadi (dry bed of a stream), and its houses made of dried mudstone and reeds and its fort, the oldest in the emirate. A desert safari will allow you to observe the 400 species of birds found in the emirate in their natural habitat, visit a falconry, take a camel ride.