QAT: Katara Cultural Village

Along Shakespeare Street and Al Moasses Street, Doha, Qatar
Daily: 24 hours

The name of the comprehensive cultural village located south of The Pearl-Qatar is inspired by the historical name of the country, Catara, prior to the 18th century. Said to be "born out of a long-held vision to position the State of Qatar as a cultural beacon and lighthouse of art, it first opened its doors in the last quarter of 2010.

An Uber ride from The Pearl-Qatar, which took about 10 minutes, cost my BFF and I QAR 13.50 (~S$5.05).

There's no entrance fee to visit the cultural village.

I forgot to take a separate photo of the gigantic gift box in the background.

I took a few panorama shots at the cultural village. Here's one of them, which you can zoom in as usual.

Katara Cultural Village was opened during the 2010 Doha Tribeca Film Festival, an annual five-day film festival organised from 2009 to 2012 to promote Arabic and international films, as well as develop a sustainable film industry in Qatar. Fast forward to 2018; when I was there in December 2018, Ajyal Youth Film Festival was taking place.

Many Qatari organisations have their offices there, such as Qatar Music Academy and Qatar Photographic Society, but to name a few.

There's a multi-purpose hall with 120 theatre seats and a room with round tables for 80 pax.

Walking down that lane made me feel as if I was in a desert town.

There's an amphitheatre that can seat up to 5,000 individuals. The first photo below is a clickable panorama shot of the back of it.

It was a pity that the amphitheatre was out-of-bounds during the Ajyal Youth Film Festival.

The amphitheatre hosted the first opera in Qatar in 2012, featuring Giuseppe Verdi's Aida.

It's a rather bleak sculpture of Mother Nature hurtling the Earth, symbolising natural disasters.

Of course I didn't want to miss the opportunity for a panorama shot there.

I recall seeing a little girl who was rather scared by the following sculptures resembling Mahatma Gandhi's famous visual metaphor of the three wise monkeys, which are made of pails, cooking instruments, lunch boxes and glass bowls.

See no evil!

Hear no evil!

Speak no evil!

Nearby is the biggest key in the world made entirely of steel. Symbolising hope for a potential homecoming of displaced Palestinian refugees and other Arabs in the region, the sculpture is placed within the compound of Ard Canaan Restaurant.

Spanning over 1.5 km, Katara Beach allows swimming till sunset. Fans of water sports can look forward to water skiing and others.

Snacks, anyone?

Gondola Ride is available daily from 5.00pm to 10.00pm. 

We dropped by a convenience store, grabbing a bottle of blueberry juice with chia seeds to share. We were hoping that it'd taste like Finland's bilberry juice, but it wasn't.

Once we were done quenching our thirst, we continued wandering about.

L'wzaar Seafood Market is a highly rated restaurant, but expect to pay premium prices to dine there.

Annual membership at Katara Beach Club costs QAR 23,000 (~S$8,571.30).

The glistening Golden Masjid is embellished with tiny golden chips. Again, the first photo below is a clickable panorama shot.

We didn't go in to the Ottoman style mosque.

The maze-like path led us to one of the two pigeon towers.

In the past, pigeons were domesticated for their droppings to be used as fertilisers.

It started to get cooler when the sun began to descend.

Chac'late is a European-themed chocolatier and café.

Super Middle Eastern man!

Here's the other pigeon tower.

Designed by Zainab Fadil Oglu, a globally-known Turkish mosque designer, The Masjid of Katara features a beautiful outer surface decorated with turquoise and purple mosaic.

Before leaving, we had some light bites at the famous Chapati & Karak café.

We made use of Uber once again to go to the Diplomatic Area of Doha.