This is the Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque, the reason we came to in Abu Dhabi. It was on the way from the airport into town, so we stopped for only a few minutes because I just had to see it. We’ll go back tomorrow.

The mosque has four minarets and 80 marble domes on the roof, which is held up by 1,000 pillars. The interior (which we didn’t see this evening) has accents from Turkey, Morocco and India’s Taj Mahal, adorned with gold, semiprecious stones, marble, crystal and ceramic. It has the world’s largest Persian carpet, which took 2,000 craftsmen to weave over the course of two years, and seven massive gold plated crystal chandeliers.

Another view of this beautiful arcade posted last night: