The vibrant and pulsating city of Abu Dhabi is rich in Emirati heritage. While it is less flashy than Dubai, the city is packed with activities for those seeking a luxurious lifestyle. In recent years, Abu Dhabi has become the epicurean, cultural and artisanal epicenter of the region. Art and culture lovers excitedly await the upcoming openings of the Abu Dhabi arms of the Louvre later in 2016 and the Guggenheim in 2017. From the latest shopping complexes to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, a range of international and regional restaurants, art museums and luxury hotels, this is a city where visitors can indulge in the present while also relishing the past.

Whether it’s an in-depth cultural getaway to the Middle East region or a journey inspired by age-old Arabian techniques for health and wellness, the time has come to experience the mysterious city of Abu Dhabi.

An artistic investment to walk all over

There are few residences in the UAE without a carpet – an item synonymous with the region's culture and heritage. Go back just a generation or two and the process of choosing a new handwoven rug was done with the same care and cautious decision making that you would a new car. At a souk, Jaddi (grandpa) would flip over a rug and run his nail on the knots: the tighter the better. Jaddati (grandma) would envision the rug on her floor – which way round should it fit? Baba (dad) would start to haggle with the store owner, hands would gesticulate, frowns would burrow, nervous laughs ring out, and mint tea offered.

But unlike a motor with a value that depreciates the moment you leave the showroom, a Persian rug’s value may double or triple in little more than a decade. A silk Iranian rug, measuring 3 x 5 meters, bought in 2000 for USD1,000 may now already be worth over USD4,000. In 2008, a handmade silk Isfahan rug from Central Persia with an outstanding craftsmanship, incredibly high knot density and use of pure silk made it such a rare find it sold for USD4,450,000.

But what’s really beautiful is that once an investment in a Persian rug is made, it should not be laid to rest in a cold decompression vault. It should be used, loved, admiringly stroked, walked on, sat on, food should be shared on while stories are told and memories captured. A Persian rug is both an investment and a visually captivating backdrop to Arabian family living.

Within Arabic homes, larger carpets are found in living rooms and majlis (meaning, a place of sitting) amplifying the hospitable décor for family and visitors. For religious purposes, smaller, more portable rugs are known as sajjadah, derived from the verb to prostrate, or to bow low. Typically measuring one by 1.5 meters, prayer rugs may include a compass pointing to Mecca and true to the mystical Islamic belief of Sufism, a sheikh will inherit the sajjadah of his tutor.

It isn’t difficult to spot handmade carpets from Iran and Afghanistan within the souks and traditional markets of Abu Dhabi; the city has long been a vibrant trading hub for the Arabian Peninsula. From traditional carpets to bespoke modern and contemporary versions, the variety of rugs available to shop is vast.

For carpets that are handmade and boasting a traditional and regional design, locals and visitors head to The Red Carpet in Dalma Mall, part of the Heritage Group established in 1975 to provide clients with high-end and customised rugs from the Middle East and internationally. Or they can take a walk along the Abu Dhabi Corniche and venture into the Center of Original Iranian Carpets (COIC), a company that has sold beautifully produced handmade carpets for over 90 years in Abu Dhabi. Here customers will be transported into a world of magic, folklore and Persian heritage.

Dawood Hosseinzadeh, managing partner of COIC, will explain how the value of a Persian carpet is based on the level of design, density of colors and quality of the material. From conception to craftsmanship, to storefronts of the region and on which floor or wall each design lands up: every carpet tells a story, and that’s priceless.

Arabian beauty

For those ancient nomadic humans wandering through the biting cold Neolithic Age who discovered how revitalized they felt after bathing their entire bodies in a warm, volcanic heated pool of water, it must have been a highlight of their societal gatherings. Tens of thousands of years have since passed and with it new cultural and regional bathing rituals have evolved; but in essence the reverence to soaking in a hot bath has changed little.

Not far from present day Abu Dhabi, the world’s earliest known public bath was discovered in the lost city of Mohenjo-daro, in the Indus Valley. Built around 2,500 BC the large pool was constructed of brick and may also have been used as a temple linking bathing and cleanliness to religious beliefs. This may have been the origins of the hammam, the oldest surviving bath tradition in the world.

A hammam is a designated bathing area whereby visitors are washed through a ritualised cleansing procedure that dates back to the days of the Roman Empire. The ancient Greeks highly regarded the act of bathing, with citizens making weekly visits to the nearby bathhouses in order to cleanse and purify themselves. Much importance was placed on cleanliness during antiquity and the activity was soon adopted into Arabic culture, especially given the importance surrounding ablution before prayer. Variants of the procedure were developed by the Moroccan and Turkish cultures that are still practised today. Bathhouses around the Arab world were, similar to those in ancient Rome, places of social gathering.

While the ritualised ceremony was and remains a weekly event celebrated with friends and family throughout the Middle East, major spas have infused the hammam experience with modern day products and know-how. Modern spas focus on how the hammam ritual exfoliates the skin, helping it to breathe more easily thus increasing the amount of oxygen delivered to the body. Today’s hammam aficionados recognize that regular hammam visits are beneficial for tackling the effects of stress, cellulite, poor circulation and dry skin.

A typical hammam will consist of three bathing rituals named after the interconnected rooms in which you move: camekan, hararet and soğukluk. Starting the experience you typically enter the grandiose warm room, the camekan, to remove your clothes and receive a peştemal, a special thin cloth to cover your body, and nalın, wooden slippers. You’ll be escorted to the hararet, the main hot room, where under a dome decorated with small glass windows that create a room of half-light, you lay on a warm, raised marble platform. As you start perspiring the pores of your skin open and your masseur will begin to scrub vigorously to wash away dead skin cells with a thin cloth and traditional soap of olive paste. Then follows an extensive scrub with a rough mitten and rounds of rinsing until you are guided to the soğukluk, or cool room, where you receive a drink, dry towel to wrap up in and where you can finally lie down on a bed to nap, as content bathers have done for thousands of years.

For one’s own well-being and exposure to a deeply cultural experience, a visit to a hammam is simply not to be missed when visiting the Middle East.

At Sense, A Rosewood Spa in Abu Dhabi, visitors can indulge in the treatment in one of two signature treatment rooms dedicated to the cleansing ritual.

Building on tradition

Impressively high and intricately decorated, modern skyrises in Abu Dhabi are memorable for their ability to merge contemporary architecture with Islamic influences. What is fascinating to discover is how the UAE’s present-day architecture is influenced by the region’s more humble beginnings.

During the late 1800s, the Arabian Peninsula was characterized by courtyard-style houses that were built from gypsum and coral stone. Charming in construction and size, these historical buildings were built according to the climactic conditions that influenced life in the Gulf. While houses were constructed to keep in cool air during the extreme desert heat as well as protect against sandstorms, traditional Arabian dwellings were also built according to cultural and religious concerns. For example, historic Arabian houses each had a majlis, the “place of sitting” in Arabic, which were cornerstone areas to the Emirati house where family and relatives would regularly gather.

Today, contemporary dwellings incorporate a similar structure while the city’s panoramic skyscrapers often fuse references to Islamic décor. For instance, the futuristic Aldar headquarters building is distinctive for its circular shape and also for its steel diagrid design that echoes patterns in Islamic architecture as well as elements from the surrounding desert landscape. Additionally, the architects were inspired by the clam shell which holds a deep meaning for Abu Dhabi given the city’s seafaring heritage as well as its symbolic geometric shape which echoes principle patterns in Islamic design. In architecture, the circle symbolises unity, rationality and stability. It also references infinity; it is a form without a beginning or an end.

There’s also the Manarat Al Saadiyat, a cultural center on Saadiyat Island, which means “place of enlightenment” Here one can find the UAE Pavilion designed by Foster + Partners and inspired by the desert dunes of the UAE. This is where the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi are set to open as incredible examples of world class, modern architecture inspired by the region’s traditions and culture.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel will be an intricate, all white, dome-shaped building poised between sand and sea. Extending out over the water, the seemingly random geometric lace pattern to cover the dome was inspired by the interlaced palm leaves traditionally used as roofing material. It will create an enchanting rain of light on the ripples below – emphasizing the importance of water in Islamic architecture.

In contrast, at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, designed by internationally renowned architect Frank Gehry who describes his creation as, “intentionally messy, moving into clarity,” will feature large cones inspired by the region’s ancient wind-towers. When it opens, the Abu Dhabi instalment of the Guggenheim will span 450,000 square feet, cost an estimated USD800 million and be 12 times the size of the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright landmark in New York. The museum will showcase art from the 1960s to the present.

A sight not to miss is the majestic Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, perhaps the best and most elaborate modern example of traditionalist Islamic architecture. One of the UAE’s most emblematic structures, the mosque opened in 2007 and is constructed from more than 80 marble domes on a roofline held aloft by over 1,000 pillars created from 100,000 tons of pure white Greek and Macedonian marble. The mosque is the physical expression of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan who dreamed of its construction and vision believing that the most honorable achievements stem from the heart. It features four minarets and eighty-two domes, created in various Islamic styles each expressing noble Islamic values. With the ability to accommodate more than 40,000 worshippers, the mosque’s beautifully formed white minarets situated against a backdrop of Arabian sand dunes easily mesmerize residents and visitors alike.