Al Shindagha Museum Entrance Ticket

Al Shindagha Museum is Dubai's largest heritage museum, and it occupies the right site for the job: the historic Al Shindagha district on the mouth of Dubai Creek, in and around the restored merchant and ruling-family houses where the city's public life was conducted before the towers. Rather than a single building it is a cluster of pavilions along the waterfront, each taking one thread of the story - the Perfume House, the Dubai Creek story, the Perfume and Traditional Medicine galleries, and the houses themselves, built of coral stone and gypsum with wind towers for cooling. The displays lean on interactive and audiovisual exhibits rather than glass cases, which makes it work for children as well as for anyone who wants the history properly. Allow around ninety minutes, more if you intend to see every pavilion. It sits within walking distance of Al Fahidi, the abra stations and the souks, so it fits naturally into a morning in old Dubai.