Grape the Vine

Wriggle your bare toes in the world’s largest hand-knotted Persian carpet (it’s worth £5 million), inside the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. This fairytale monument to Islam has 82 marble domes, 1,192 columns studded with semi-precious stones, four minarets dipped in real gold, and the world’s largest chandelier. (Be aware that female visits are heavily policed for errant flashes of ankle.)

This artiticle was written to exand on the short guide of things to do in Abu Dhabi on the Etihad website.  Etihad Airways use Abu Dhabi Airport as there hub operating scheduled international flights around the world.  Recent destinations include the Seychelles and a new convenient flights to the Maldives

A huge red building styled like a racing car is bound to stand out – even on super-futuristic Yas Island, an outcrop of theme parks in the city’s northeast. Ferrari World is a petrolhead’s paradise, with a 240kpm rollercoaster ride that simulates Grand Prix G-forces. Find out more about this years Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Historically, falcons killed on the orders of their masters, the nomadic Arabs of the Middle East. The Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital (www.falconhospital.com; tours Sun-Thur at 10am and 2pm; £29) diagnoses and treats at least 3,000 of these desert predators every year. Those fearless of sharp talons can hold the birds – on gloved hands.

The vast, palm-trimmed Manarat Al Saadiyat Centre is home to three art galleries showing big-name exhibitions, from Picasso to ‘The Arts of Islam’. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The astonishing Cultural District emerging on the beachfront down the road (www.artsabudhabi.ae/en) will include The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (opens 2012), followed by the first Louvre outside Paris, and the Performing Arts Centre – a sinuous structure with windows shaped like leaves.

Kick up the dust on the F1 Marina Circuit behind the wheel of an Aston Martin GT4. If you’d prefer someone else to take your life in their hands, ride shotgun in a two-seater F1 racing car. The Yas Racing School (www.yasmarinacircuit.ae) can do both, but even in this well-supplied neck of the woods, petrol ain’t cheap: 75 minutes’ tuition in an Aston Martin costs £251; a three-lap passenger ride in an F1 car comes in at £1,910.

The Persian Gulf isn’t short of pretty fish (keep eyes peeled for a pearl oyster). If you fancy doing a 007-style backwards roll off the side of a dive boat, Al Masaood Travel will assist (www.almasaoodtravel.com/scuba; from £49; equipment hire from £24).

Get away from the glitz on a back-to-basics desert safari. Start with an exhilarating blast over the dunes in a 4WD at sunset, followed by camel photo ops and a visit to a Bedouin camp for a barbecue dinner, shisha-smoking and belly-dancing under a star-spangled sky. Emirates Adventures (www.eatours.ae) has half-day desert tours from £48pp.

Tee off in the spike marks of former world number-one golfer Lee Westwood, at Yas Links golf course (www.yaslinks.com; green fee from £66 for 18 holes). Opened in 2010, it’s already reputed to be one of the best courses in the Middle East, with no intrusive real estate to mar the sigh-inducing sea views. Alternatively, play pre-irrigation-era-style on the sand course at Al Ghazal (www.alghazalgolf.ae; green fee from £20) – you putt on ‘blacks’, made of compact sand and oil.