Immediately behind the Heritage House, the Al Ahmadiya School is perhaps the most attractive traditional building in Dubai, with two neat storeys arranged around a diminutive central courtyard, enclosed by beautifully carved arches. Founded in 1912, this was the first school in the UAE, and counts a couple of the city’s former ruling sheikhs among its list of old boys....

At the dead centre of Sharjah on Al Burj Avenue stands the modest little Al Hisn Fort, the former residence of the ruling Al Qassimi family and centrepiece of the old town. (Currently overshadowed by a long line of spectacularly ugly apartment blocks, although these are now slated for long overdue demolition as part of the ambitious Heart of Sharjah...

Easily the best museum in town, the Dubai Museum offers an ideal first stop on any tour of the city, and the perfect place to get up to speed with the history and traditional culture of this formerly isolated desert settlement. The museum is housed in the crusty old Al Fahidi Fort, dating back to around 1800, which makes it...

At the northern end of Shindagha, the so-called Heritage Village comprises a quadrangle of traditional building arranged around a large sandy courtyard dotted with palm-thatch huts. It’s normally pretty somnolent during the day, but comes to life after dark (especially during the Dubai Shopping Festival and Ramadan), when local women set up food and craft stalls around the courtyard, backed...

Hidden away at the far end of the Textile Souk is one of Dubai’s most unlikely but appealing attractions. Popularly known as “Hindi Lane”, this little ethnic enclave is probably as close to India as you can get without actually going there: a tiny alleyway lined with dozens of microscopic shops and stalls selling all manner of traditional Hindu religious...

Standing proud at the north end of the Jumeirah Road, the Jumeirah Mosque is one of the finest in Dubai, built in 1979 in quasi-Fatimid (Egyptian) style, and with a pair of soaring minarets rising high above the surrounding suburban sprawl. It’s also the only mosque in Dubai which is open to non-Muslims, thanks to the popular one-hour tours run...

Now incongruously marooned amidst the endless suburban sprawl of Jumeirah, the Majlis Ghorfat um al Sheef was built in 1955 as a summer retreat and majlis (meeting room) by the city’s then-ruler, Sheikh Rashid, the canny and ambitious leader who did so much to set Dubai on the road to modernity. The pretty little two-storey building is a good example...

Close to the superb Museum of Islamic Civilization lies the surprisingly grand Sharjah Art Museum, another of the city’s leading cultural attractions (although sadly, the museum’s superb collection of orientalist painting by nineteenth-century Scottish artist David Roberts have now been removed). The ground floor is devoted to temporary exhibitions. The upstairs gallery hosts a permanent collection of Modern Arabian Art covering the...

In the heart of the city, the Sharjah Heritage Area comprises an area of neatly restored traditional Arabian houses, many of them now converted to modest museums – although a couple are currently closed and the whole area is currently being turned upside down as part of the Heart of Sharjah project. Centrepiece of the area is the enjoyable Sharjah Heritage Museum...

The best single reason for trawling out to Sharjah is to visit the city’s outstanding Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization, occupying the impeccably restored Souk al Majara, sat next to the waterfront and topped with a distinctive golden dome. It’s beautifully presented and well explained, even if the rather self-congratulatory signage attached to some of the exhibits can occasionally grate....

Dubai’s answer to Buckingham Palace – albeit a bit more modest in scale – this fine old traditional house on the edge of the Creek was formerly home to several of the city’s ruling sheikhs. The house was first built in 1896 (making it one of the oldest buildings in Dubai) by Sheikh Maktoum bin Hasher Al Maktoum, and subsequently...

The Creekside district of Shindagha is one of the oldest areas of the city, and perhaps the place where you get the clearest sense of what old Dubai once looked like. Although it’s now been virtually swallowed up by Bur Dubai, until the 1960s Shindagha remained quite separate, divided by an inlet (roughly where the Shindagha Tower now is) which...

Occupying a prime Creekside location bang in the middle of Bur Dubai, the old Textile Souk is the prettiest in the city, with a long, carefully restored arcade of old coral-walled buildings topped by an arching wooden roof, offering welcome shade in the heat of the day. This was once the old city’s principal souk and commercial heart, though its...

Occupying one of the most attractive of Shindagha‘s restored heritage houses, the Traditional Architecture Museum (despite its rather dry name) provides an absorbing look at the traditional building styles of the Gulf. Illuminating displays cover the basic construction techniques and tools involved – often making ingenious use of simple local materials like coral stone, palm-fibre rope and mangrove poles –...