Dubai had always been on my bucket list for various reasons, and when I learned that my birthday falls into the school holidays this year, I jumped right at the opportunity to celebrate with my family at the beach. 😉

Prior to our trip we had heard a million and one (polarizing) things about this futuristic and glamourous metropolitan city, and I understand now, they are all true. Although most of the people we talked to were just totally blown away by this city of superlatives, some also described it like a huge themepark „Disneyland for adults“, an episode of Black Mirror and an artificial city with both a lack of urban culture and true city soul connection.

Dubai is definitely a city of superlatives (best – tallest – biggest – hottest – most expensive etc.) that seeks to impress and does so with success. There really is no place like it. It’s hard to imagine that less than 40 years ago, Dubai was a sleepy country on the Persian Gulf.  We stayed a little less than a week and every day we were just blown away by something new we discovered. I took so many photos that I thought I better split this huge blog post into several little ones so that you can better digest it and don’t feel too overwhelmed, haha! If you are planning a trip to Dubai and have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop me a note.

Let’s start with the mind-boggling Burj Khalifa today which is such an iconic structure and with its 830 meters the highest building in the world by far. We have never seen something like this before. Our hotel was just nearby and this building is so unbelievably high that it always made me laugh when Juliana desperately tried to take a photo of it, but it didn’t fit all into her smartphone frame and she got upset about it.

Of course we also had to head to the top of the world and fully take in the magnificent view. Luckily Juliana must have totally forgotten that she usually is very afraid of heights.

Please enjoy a first gazillion images of the Burj Khalifa … we still feel quite overwhelmed with all these superlative impressions and I can honestly say there is no other place quite like Dubai.

I’ll be back soon with five more posts about Dubai, so make sure you’ll have lots of coffee prepared, haha!

Travelling with someone who’s got celiac disease can be quite challenging at times. Luckily we found this amazing and very romantic restaurant who served Juliana a delicious gluten free dinner. We got seats at the terrace (highly recommend!) and had this incredible view both of the Burj Khalifa and the dancing fountains. It doesn’t get any better.