Off the Beaten Track

l-Zubara

Zubara is rich in history, although nothing you'll see around it even hints at this. Until about 100 years ago, Zubara (near Qatar's north-western coast) was the country's main settlement. For almost 200 years it was controlled by the Al-Khalifa, Bahrain's ruling family, but hotly contested between them and Qatar's Al-Thani family. The fort you see today was built in 1938, shortly after the Al-Thanis wrested the settlement from Bahraini control once and for all. It was used by the military well into the 1980s. Several of the rooms around the fort's courtyard have displays of items, mostly potsherds, found at or near the fort. A couple of kilometres beyond are the ruins of some much older coastal fortifications, probably from the 17th or 18th century. There are also the excavated remains of a city.

Zubara is 105km (65mi) north of Doha and is reached only by taxi or rental car.

Al-Khor

A small coastal town about 65km (40mi) north of Doha, Al-Khor is the home of a small museum that's rarely open, the ruins of a mosque and a number of scattered old watchtowers, several of which have been restored to their original form. An inscription inside the mosque says that it was built in Ramadan 1372 AH (1953 AD). History aside, the real reason to stop in Al-Khor is for the tremendous view of the ocean from the mosque.

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