This is a new fashionable area of Dubai, which managed to re-glorify the Emirates with its unprecedented construction projects. Downtown (from English downtown), as a rule, is called the business part of the city with business centers, banks, shopping complexes. Dubai Downtown, which, incidentally, began to erect in 2004, for all these facilities today is ahead of any metropolis.
Here, for example, the 828-meter skyscraper of Burj Khalifa (Burj Khalifa). This is the tallest building in the world, and its viewing platform is the first place with which most tourists begin to get acquainted with the Dubai downtown.
Dubai Mall
The largest shopping center in the world - Dubai Mall - is located here. To bypass it is the same as to overcome the area equal to the area of 50 (!) Football fields. This is a paradise for shopaholics, because there are more than 1200 boutiques with clothes from the most famous brands, both budget and luxury. But hitting here, you are unlikely to confine only a couple of updates in the wardrobe. Hundreds of shops of electronic and computer equipment, boutiques with cosmetics, shoes, accessories and sporting goods will help considerably to empty the wallet.
In the Emirates, many go for inexpensive gold jewelry. So, in Dubai Mall there is a real Gold market with more than 220 jewelry boutiques. A rest and a snack after a many-hour shopping marathon can be done right at the mall.
Well, in order to completely switch your attention from endless boutiques to something more interesting, you can go on an excursion to the underwater zoo, located directly at the mall .The love of the Arabs for everything exclusive and unique you will feel here .Because even an aquarium with fish they managed to make the biggest in the world .Imagine: more than 50 meters in height and 20 meters in length, that's it - the Dubai Aquarium! But that's not all .The continuation of the aquarium is a tunnel - a kind of underwater zoo, after which, one can get to know more than 33 000 marine inhabitants @.
By the way, without leaving the mall, you can still visit the amusement park SEGA Republic, in the territory of which hundreds of attractions are concentrated - from the most extreme to just mobile games-simulators.
For the youngest tourists in Dubai Mall, an interactive city Kidzania has been created - with real streets, businesses, shops. Here, children can play not only a doctor or a teacher, but in 70 other professions, for example, becoming an airplane pilot, a fireman or a pop singer. For these games in Kidzania there are children's airplanes, hoses and far from non-guitar sound studios.
For cinephiles in the Dubai Mall there is a 22-room cinema, so the long-awaited premiere will be one of the first, even being far from home.
Dubai fountain
Closer to the evening, all the tourists meet at the fountain. True true! Well, you can not miss such a spectacle. Dubai Fountain Complex "comes to life" at exactly 17.45 local time, paralyzing all its activities in the area. The fountain "dances" for classics, Arabic melodies and world-famous hits, forming over 1000 different figures in the air.
To admire this beauty is not among the many thousands of people, but at a closer distance, you need to take care of tickets for boat excursion. There are such 65 dirhams. In translation for "our" is about 500 rubles. (at the rate for August 2013). Tickets are sold in the center of downtown and at the Burj Khalifa ticket offices.
The Dubai fountain "dances" from 17.45 to 23.30 local time, and the last excursion boat departs in 30 minutes. before the end of his work.
Other attractions in downtown Dubai
In downtown Dubai, along with super-modern skyscrapers, they managed to preserve the past. The proof of this is Suk al-Bahar - a shopping complex built in the spirit of traditional architectural motifs of the East. It has more than 100 shops, 22 restaurants and a café with views of the Burj Khalifa Tower and the Dubai Fountain.
It is worth to visit the central street of Downtown - Boulevard Mohammed bin Rashid. A new batch of boutiques, fashionable restaurants and cafes await on the boulevard with a length of 3.5 km of tourists. By the way, you can see all the sights of this Dubai district for only 38, 5 rubles. (August 2013)! It is in so much will cost a ticket for the sightseeing bus to the sights of downtown. During the bus tour 11 stops are provided. If desired, you can stay in the place you like and resume the tour already on the next bus.
Who watches his physical form even on vacation or just wants to compare his "simulator" with Dubai, in downtown there are a number of large fitness centers. Many of them work around the clock, and in all there are definitely great swimming pools. Although Dubai is not a resort town, there are plenty of spa centers that can compete with European health centers. All spa centers are located at local hotels.
Downtown continues to actively build up, but even now the area is the world's most expensive real estate and land. You can buy an apartment both in a two-story building, and on the roof of a 45-story skyscraper. Despite the high prices, housing is actively bought up, including non-residents of the Emirates. Part of this is facilitated by the fact that the downtown is declared a freehold area of the UAE, that is, the place where real estate is given to the full ownership of the buyer.