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Best Culture Destinations in Middle East

28 city guides · 3-day culture itineraries

3-day city guides focused on museums, galleries, performing arts and local creative scenes.

Middle East
🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi

The Universal Museum, Islamic heritage and the UAE's extraordinary investment in cultural infrastruc…

Middle East
🇸🇾 Syria

Aleppo

The Citadel, the world's longest souks, Dead Cities and the Silk Road heritage…

Middle East
🇯🇴 Jordan

Amman

Contemporary Arab art in restored 1920s villas, Circassian-era architecture, oud recitals and the pr…

Middle East
🇮🇶 Iraq

Baghdad

Modern-art galleries, 13th-century madrasas, the National Theatre and the hammering workshops of Sou…

Middle East
🇱🇧 Lebanon

Bcharre

Oil paintings in a 7th-century hermitage, rock-cut monastery frescoes, a Lebanese printing-press mus…

Middle East
🇱🇧 Lebanon

Beirut

Rebuilt Ottoman museums, Karantina white cubes, tarab theatre in Hamra and the Armenian quarter buil…

Middle East
🇸🇾 Syria

Damascus

Mamluk palaces, Syrian modernist painting, Arabic calligraphy workshops and the living craft atelier…

Middle East
🇶🇦 Qatar

Doha

Pei and Nouvel landmarks, the Gulf's boldest contemporary art scene, and workshops where oud, callig…

Middle East
🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates

Dubai

Coral-stone courtyards in Al Fahidi, converted marble factories in Al Quoz, and a dhow-shaped opera …

Middle East
🇮🇱 Israel

Eilat

Sculpture parks, biblical mosaics, a working artists' quarter and the Red Sea Jazz legacy at the edg…

Middle East
🇮🇱 Israel

Haifa

Japanese scrolls above the harbour, Bauhaus on Hadar's terraces, and Arab-Jewish studio culture in t…

Middle East
🇮🇷 Iran

Isfahan

Palace wall-painting, a museum of santurs and kamanchehs, Armenian churches and a working zurkhaneh …

Middle East
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia

Jeddah

Miró and Moore on the seafront, a 300-room private museum, Hejazi music archives and the Kingdom's m…

Middle East
🇮🇱 Israel

Jerusalem

Bezalel-school modernism, Israel Museum masterworks, Armenian ceramics and the live music of the Mac…

Middle East
🇰🇼 Kuwait

Kuwait City

Islamic masterworks, oil-era architecture and a contemporary gallery circuit few visitors ever find.…

Middle East
🇧🇭 Bahrain

Manama

Private galleries, restored pearl-merchant houses, Bahraini theatre and the National Museum's Bronze…

Middle East
🇮🇷 Iran

Mashhad

The world's largest mosque complex, Timurid masterpieces, saffron bazaar and Omar Khayyam's tomb…

Middle East
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia

Mecca

Gold-thread looms, rescued marble columns, rawasheen balconies and immersive revelation museums — th…

Middle East
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia

Medina

Basalt Ottoman mosques, a 1908 railway terminus turned museum, endowed manuscript vaults and evening…

Middle East
🇴🇲 Oman

Muscat

Royal opera in a marble arcade, Oman's national narrative in stone, and the silversmiths and khanjar…

Middle East
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia

Riyadh

Clay-walled palaces in Diriyah, warehouse galleries in JAX District and Saudi Arabia's newest concer…

Middle East
🇴🇲 Oman

Salalah

Museums of the Land of Frankincense, Portuguese-era forts, silversmith workshops and the living Jeba…

Middle East
🇾🇪 Yemen

Sana'a

Palace museums, Ottoman stonework, a restored caravanserai art centre and the oud-and-turbi traditio…

Middle East
🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates

Sharjah

Beyond the heritage quarter: Orientalist painting, a Triennial in an old girls' school, canal-side t…

Middle East
🇮🇷 Iran

Shiraz

Mirror-work mansions, UNESCO-listed Persian gardens, artisan caravanserais and the concert halls whe…

Middle East
🇮🇷 Iran

Tabriz

Qajar mansion-museums, the country's oldest municipal art collection, ashik lute players and the car…

Middle East
🇮🇷 Iran

Tehran

Gallery rows on Iranshahr Street, the Tehran Symphony at Vahdat Hall, and the Shah's frozen-in-1979 …

Middle East
🇮🇱 Israel

Tel Aviv

Museum wings by Preston Scott Cohen, dance at Suzanne Dellal, and the gallery blocks of Kiryat HaMel…