Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sights
Many of Kuwait's sights are concentrated along the corniche (Arabian Gulf St) and
around the National Museum area. While some of the downtown sights are within walk-
ing distance of each other, the most convenient way of visiting outlying attractions, or of
covering longer stretches of the corniche, is by taxi.
One of the best new sights in Kuwait is the night-time display of lights on the new
tower blocks dominating the Dasman area of town. Architects seem intent on outdoing
each other in ingenuity of design, colour and motion of these lighting displays which com-
bine to make downtown look much more dynamic and complete than it appears by day!
After the Tareq Rajab Museum, the following sights are listed geographically along or
just off Arabian Gulf St from the Scientific Center to Yaum Al-Bahhar Village.
Tareq Rajab Museum MUSEUM
OFFLINE MAP
( 2531 7358; www.trmkt.com ; Street 5, House 22 Block 12, Jabriya; admission KD2; 4-7pm Sat-Thu)
Housed in the basement of a large villa, this exquisite ethnographic museum should not be
missed. It was assembled as a private collection of Islamic art by Kuwait's first minister
of antiquities and his British wife. A pair of ornate doors from Cairo and Carl Haag's
19th-century painting of Lady Jane Digby el-Mesreb of Palmyra, who lived in tents in the
winter and a Damascus villa in the summer, mark the entrance to an Aladdin's cave of
beautiful items. There are inlaid musical instruments suspended in glass cabinets; Omani
silver and Saudi gold jewellery; headdresses, from the humble prayer cap to the Mongol
helmet; costumes worn by princesses and by goatherds; necklaces for living goddesses in
Nepal; Jaipur enamel; and Bahraini pearl. Despite all these superbly presented pieces from
around the Muslim world, it is the Arabic manuscripts that give the collection its interna-
tional importance.
The museum is all the more prized given the fate that befell the treasures in the Nation-
al Museum during the Iraqi invasion. When news of the invasion spread, the owners
bricked up the doorway at the bottom of the entry steps and strewed the way with rubbish.
The Iraqis questioned why the stairs led to nowhere, but mercifully didn't pursue the issue
and the collection survived intact.
The museum is in Jabriya, near the intersection of the Fifth Ring Motorway and the Ab-
dulaziz Bin Abdilrahman al-Saud Expressway (also known as the Fahaheel Expressway).
Although there is no sign on the building, it is easily identified by its entrance - a carved
wooden doorway flanked by two smaller doors on each side. All four of the door panels
are worked in gilt metal.
 
 
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