BAB AL SHAMS DESERT RESORT AND SPA
Escaping to an Oasis Outside Dubai
FOR ALMOST TWO DECADES, UAE residents have made the 45-minute pilgrimage up AI Qudra Road-past outlandishly shaped man-made lakes, swirling cycling paths, and endurance horse racing tracks. They go to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries or just to enjoy an indulgent weekend at Bab AI Shams. The resort is a study of subtlety and slow reveal in a city that often focuses on the opposite. Its much-photographed infinity pool, which drops off into a vast sandy expanse in a stunning paradox of elemental opposites, is the draw for many.
For me, it's the quiet: all-enveloping and absolute. The resort comes into its own as the sun sets, the silhouettes of sand dunes framed in painterly pinks and mauves, bamboo torches flickering along the perimeter, and lanterns creating a play of light and shadow in outdoor passageways.
It may be unassuming, but Bab AI Shams is not devoid of spectacle. At AI Hadheerah, the colossal, open-air restaurant, nightly performances serve up all the Arabian classics: a belly dancer, a whirling dervish, musicians, singers, a mini souk, and even a reenactment of a Bedouin caravan with camels and horses crisscrossing a bordering desert plateau. Live cooking stations serve up generous grills and regional specialities like lamb salona, harees, and chicken biryani, and the spirited Egyptian chef de cuisine Mohamed Ferjani takes great delight in showing me the underground contraption used to prepare his seven-hour slow-cooked ouzi lamb.
Denne historien er fra January - February 2024-utgaven av Condé Nast Traveler US.
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Denne historien er fra January - February 2024-utgaven av Condé Nast Traveler US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Sands of Time - Sculpted by millennia, Chad is a place of ancient geology and epic grandeur. Aminatta Forna finds her place in it all
The 15,000-square-mile Ennedi Massif, in north-eastern Chad, is a plateau the size of Switzerland. Between 350 million and 500 million years ago, this part of the globe was an ocean. Then the ocean disappeared, leaving the sandstone floor exposed. The climate shifted from rain-soaked to arid. Sun, wind, and water sculpted the sandstone into a dramatic, desolate, unearthly landscape of gorges and valleys, inselbergs and stacks, towering tassili and natural arches. In the desert the delicate threads of life become apparent in trails of tiny footprints scattered across the sands: here, the tear-shaped tracks of a lizard; there, the dimpled prints of a gerbil.
Antiques Road Show - After buying a second home, in France, the designer Claire Vivier called up fellow designer Kate Berry to go on the ultimate shopping spree
When Los Angeles-based designer Clare Vivier began decorating the 19th-century house she'd bought in her husband's hometown of Saint-Calais, in France's Loire Valley, she had a particular aesthetic in mind. I love color and patterns but wanted something peaceful, so the intention was to create a dialogue between those two things, she says. She wanted the house to have a blend of contemporary pieces, antiques, and textiles from heritage maisons to create a space that, much like her namesake handbag and fashion label, channeled both California fun and French sophistication. She also knew that she wanted her longtime friend Kate Berry, a designer and creative director, to help her make it happen.
The Slow Road - Rather than rush from Tokyo to Kyoto by train, as most visitors to Japan do, Tom Vanderbilt chose to bike - coasting down country roads, spying snow monkeys, and refueling with hearty bowls of soba
Rather than rush from Tokyo to Kyoto by train, as most visitors to Japan do, Tom Vanderbilt chose to bike - coasting down country roads, spying snow monkeys, and refueling with hearty bowls of soba. At the peak of the day's heat, I pulled into the tiny hamlet of Hirase, in Japan's Gifu Prefecture. I'd just climbed a twisting, waterfall-lined road several thousand feet through Hakusan National Park before descending into the shimmering fantasy landscape of Shirakawa-go, an almost Tolkien-esque village (and UNESCO World Heritage Site) comprising centuries-old farmhouses with peaked thatch roofs.
SHAILENE WOODLEY on FIJI
I was in Suva, the capital of Fiji, making a film, and our crew took over half of the Grand Pacific Hotel.
easy does it
Beyond the bubble of Queenstown, New Zealand's majestic Otago region offers the kinds of adventures you can truly appreciate only by slowing down
gather round
The secret ingredient in Philadelphia's lauded food scene? The empathy of the locals behind it
THE PAST IS PRESENT
Beguilingly complex Istanbul has done a lot of soul-searching in recent years. Lale Arikoglu digs into the city's modern identity - while tracing the roots of her own
Creation Story
Modern-day craftspeople are bringing back traditional Arabian arts in Jeddah's Old Town of Al-Balad
Continental Drift
For her first trip to Africa, aboard an HX Hurtigruten cruise ship, Sarah Greaves Gabbadon confronts her assumptions about what a homeland means
On the Rise
With new hotels, climbing routes, and biking trails, Colorado's low-key, high-elevation Western Slope is ripe for adventure
