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Muscat Muscat, the capital of Oman, is the quietest capital we've ever been to. We visited Old Muscat, which is where Sultan's Palace is. |
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Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat Sultan Qaboos recently built a beautiful mosque in Muscat, close to the airport. Although austere on the outside, the interior is beautifully decorated. |
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Mutrah (Muttrah), the Marina area of Muscat We stayed in Mutrah, which is the location of Muscat's Marina, as well as the souk. |
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Muscat Qurum On our way out of Muscat, we stayed in the Qurum area of Muscat, and went for a nice walk on the beach to watch the sunset. |
We went for a walk along the Qurum Beach to watch the sunset. It was a lovely walk. Groups of young local boys had gathered on the beach with improvised soccer pitches to play some games. There were palapas lining the beach – and although it was cold and windy, I can imagine that ... (read more →)
Although we had originally planned to stay again at Marina Hotel (despite it being a dive, it was still a great location, and better the devil you know…) but the dive was full. I guess that disco gets pretty popular. We ended up staying at the slightly more expensive but much nicer Qurum ... (read more →)
The souk, about a 5 minute walk from where we were staying, has a lot of good handicrafts for sale, frankincense, myrrh, and all sorts of other tourist souvenirs. Prices were reasonable, but seemed to suddenly inflate as soon as a cruise boat disembarked. At quieter times however, a good deal could ... (read more →)
We took a walk from Muttrah to Old Muscat. It took about an hour to walk along the Corniche to Old Muscat, and it was a very pleasant walk along the seaside. We walked past the dancing fountains near Al Riyam Park (impressive!) and past the huge incense burner, but were a little ... (read more →)
We headed straight out to the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, which is open to non-Muslims very limited hours. The mosque was beautiful – one of the most beautiful mosques we’ve ever seen. Although the exterior is rather austere, once you get inside, the carvings, the chandelier and the carpets are amazing. We ... (read more →)
Our hotel, the Marina Hotel, was in fantastic location overlooking the port and minutes away from the market, but the room was not very clean. In addition, starting at around 8pm, there is a loud disco going on till 2 or 3 in the morning. We were on the third story, and it ... (read more →)
Arriving in Muscat, the airport is very comfortable, and we were able to get money out and get into a cab easily. It turns out that despite clear directions, our cab driver took us to the wrong hotel, and when he finally took us to the right hotel, he tried to increase the rate. ... (read more →)
We took a short hop flight from Dubai to Muscat. We decided to fly instead of taking a bus because we were worried about crossing the border (the guidebook led us to believe there could be long delays). However, this might not have been necessary, as several people we met told us this ... (read more →)
