Bahrain Museum
The National Museum of Bahrain
The National Museum is really cool. The building itself and the surrounding grounds have lots of sculptures and art pieces. (The courtyard with all its sculptures is reminiscent of the scene from The Lion, Witch & The Wardrobe where all the animals are frozen by the winter Queen!)The museum gives an overview of Bahrain’s history from neolithic times to the present. It also houses information on Bahrain’s independence from Britain in 1971 and a wonderful section on manuscripts which house some beautiful Qurans, encased in mother of pearl and with fantastic covers. Another section was dedicated to daily life in Bahrain, with an emphasis on the traditional.
A large section of the main hall is dedicated to the Pope’s visit in November 2022, including the Fiat 500 that Pope Francis used to travel around in.
The ancient Dilmun civilisation is extensively covered, including replicas of the thousands of burial mounds that dot the country. In fact, without knowing it, we drove past lots of them on the way to the Grand Prix.
We also hopped on a boat trip curtesy of the museum, to a small UNESCO heritage site of an old Portuguese fort that was part of the pearl trail that formed the bulk of Bahrain’s economy up until the 1930’s.
Overall, well worth the 2 BHD for a visit.
Enjoyed the brief foray into the museum and on the waterfront. How hot is the air temp?
averaging around 29 – 30 during the day, 24 ish at night. However, today is overcast and cooler (27!!!) and we miss the vast blue sky! Unsurprisingly, it is a very dry heat. Also, the water is not safe to drink so consuming gallons of bottled water and there are no recycling facilities. This really concerns me as the whole population has to drink bottled water – all that plastic 🙁