Things to do at the National Museum of Qatar

The National Museum of Qatar opened in 2019 on the Corniche, wrapped around the restored palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani, Qatar's ruler in the early twentieth century. The architect, Jean Nouvel, built the new galleries as a cluster of interlocking discs meant to recall a desert rose, the mineral formation that crystallises in salt flats; from West Bay the drive is roughly 15 to 20 minutes.

Inside, an 800-metre chronological route moves from the geology of the peninsula through pearling, Bedouin life and the discovery of oil to the modern state, using film, sound and artefacts rather than a conventional room-by-room hang.

Like most Qatar Museums sites, it closes one day a week; check current opening days before travelling out, since that detail changes and is easy to get wrong from an old source.