The main reason I am here in Qatar is to help my brother and my sister-in-law with their new baby. They both work, and their nanny has not arrived yet. My parents are also here, and a couple days ago my mom got bored and said I should take her out somewhere since I’d been using Uber to get around town whenever I got bored.

I was thinking about where to take her, and I thought that Katara would be a good choice, and some friends suggested it as well. Both my mom and I had been here before on separate occasions, and only at night, so we decided to check it out during the daytime because I wanted to see the beach. Both of us had only walked along the front of Katara where most of the restaurants are, and this time we decided to check out the back. And I sure am glad we did! It was serene! Details to follow.

Katara is the cultural hub of Doha. There are loads of restaurants, local architecture, and Katara also hosts many festivals and other cultural events. There is a beach along the front of the walk, then restaurants, then the back, which also has some restaurants and cafes as well as a beautiful mosque, and the offices of the Qatari Society for Engineers, Qatar Fine Arts Society, Visual Art Centre, Qatar Photographic Society, Childhood Cultural Centre, Theatre Society, and Qatar Music Academy. “Katara” is a historical name for the peninsula which is now the State of Qatar. The name was chosen in order to mesh the old, historical “Katara” with the contemporary Qatar.

Here are a couple of pictures from my last visit to Katara.

So, my mom and I took an Uber taxi to Katara village. We asked the driver to drop us off by the beach. It was such a lovely day! Mellow weather, cool breeze from the sea, and not too sunny. There were loads of people at the beach so we didn’t bother going into the sand. I prefer quiet beaches, and too many kids annoy me. They have nice, sit down restaurants behind the walk, but on the walk there are some food stalls where you can get snacks. My mom got a “Karak” chai, which is a sort of spiced milk tea with loads of cardamom and we also got this fried potato snack. They spiral-cut the potato, stick in on a skewer and deep-fry it and then sprinkle it with your choice of spices. I got chili-lemon-salt. SO GOOD!!!

The view was spectacular.

There is a beautiful open-air amphitheatre in the Greek style with local influences.

Now for the best part. I hadn’t been to this side of Katara before! Step behind the amphitheatre and you enter another world! There are not a lot of people here, and it is so beautiful. It is styled in classical Arab style architecture with tarps to keep the area shaded and each building has a sort of small tough around it with running water. The sound of the water makes the atmosphere so calming. I think the purpose of the water is to keep the area cool. It really works! At first I thought horses were kept here and the troughs were for them to drink out of 😀 I quickly realised that makes no sense because they were around all the buildings. There was also a very pretty mosque completely covered in tiny gold mosaic tile. My pictures didn’t capture how nice it all was.

When we walked around the corner from the last picture, we came across this adorable cafe called Chac’Late. It was sooooooo pretty! They have GORGEOUS desserts! I saw other people ordering this really delicious-looking cake, waffles with fruit, and other really yummy things. They also sell hand-made chocolates. Since my mom and I had already snacked before, we sadly couldn’t eat here again, but we still wanted to go to the cafe so we decided to order some coffee and green tea.

If you’re ever in Doha, you absolutely must visit Katara Cultural Village. If you like seafood, visit L’Wazaar Seafood Market because the food is very good. And don’t forget to step behind the amphitheatre!

PS: I know formatting is usually bad in my blog posts. I can’t figure out how to align the pictures the way I would like. Sorry about that, and I hope it’s not too annoying! And you can always click to open the picture if you’d like a closer look.

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