The Sheikh Grand Mosque, inspired by the Taj Mahal (Image: Getty)
The Penny dropped. “Oh you mean it’s indoors,” I said.
Warner Bros World is Abu Dhabi’s newest tourist attraction.
To be honest I hadn’t been keen on the thought of a theme park with roller coasters, queues, fretful children and fast-food outlets in temperatures that routinely hit 35C.
But, indoors… another matter entirely.
Of course it was indoors! Silly me.
It is a huge air-conditioned indoors of themed delights.
See different “lands” such as Bedrock (home of The Flintstones), Gotham City (visit the Joker’s house), Metropolis (a golden age of Hollywood set with what looks like a wide Californian sky above you).
And being the sort who opts for the revolving teacups rather than the roller coaster of death I was very happy to glide through Scooby-Doo’s Museum of Mysteries in a revolving banquette, shrieking with laughter.
It was, honestly, tremendous fun and I say this as someone who thought they were allergic to theme parks.
And celeb alert in Gotham City, none other than boxer Floyd Mayweather, festooned in gold chains, happily signing autographs and surrounded by bodyguards who were twice his size. Big kid.
Warner Bros World is almost adjacent to another of Abu Dhabi’s thrilling tourist venues, Ferrari World (also mostly indoors), which boasts the world’s fastest roller coaster and is close to the Yas Marina race track.
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is in December and you can book a room with a bird’s eye view at the Yas Rotana hotel for around £620 a night.
Warner Bros World is Abu Dhabi’s newest tourist attraction (Image: Getty)
What is Abu Dhabi emirate exactly?
In Al Ain, a city built round a desert oasis, we visited the Al Jahili Fort (visitabudhabi.ae, free) which looks like a giant child’s sandcastle and was built in the 1820s.
It houses a permanent exhibition to the British explorer Sir Wilfred Thesiger who crossed the vast expanse of desert known as the Empty Quarter in the 1940s.
Among the remarkable black and white photographs of Bedouin life is a photograph of Abu Dhabi city in 1947.
It was a few shacks along the beach.
And now – just 70 years on – it is the one of the richest city states in the world, a cluster of skyscrapers like a brace of sharp knives built on linked islands stretching into the Persian Gulf.
The Al Jahili Fort, built in the 1820s, looks like a giant child’s sandcastle (Image: Getty)
The capital of the UAE, which has only been a country since 1971, 70 per cent of the emirate is empty desert, 80 per cent of the population of three million are foreigners.
Its vast wealth is built on oil, discovered in 1958, changing for ever the lives of the nomadic tribesmen that Thesiger wrote about.
It has more oil than water.
But even these oil-rich lands are, like the rest of the world, planning for a future when the oil has run out.
Tourism features high on Abu Dhabi’s to-do list, it prides itself on being less blingy and more cultural than its near neighbour Dubai.
Its most prestigious project is the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum (louvreabudhabi.ae, £12.60), which opened last year as part of an agreement with the French government.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi museum opened last year as part of an agreement with the French government (Image: Getty)
The effect of the pierced dome structure is meant to mimic light filtering through palm trees in an oasis.
It is cool, soothing and vast, the stone floor flecked with tiny shifting pools of sunlight.
There are fine paintings and art works from old masters and contemporary artists, but no nudes.
This is a Muslim country after all.
Like everyone who visits a museum I ended up in the shop intending to buy a couple of postcards.
More than £2 each. Yikes. That’s the thing about Abu Dhabi.
Like Dubai, it has the plush shopping malls but the prices are astronomical.
One expat told me it made financial sense to fly to London a couple of times a year to replenish his wardrobe.
So it’s not a shopping destination unless you are loaded.
It’s damned hot in Abu Dhabi, but not – you’ll be pleased to hear – dry. Hotels and some restaurants serve cocktails and wine all day.
We were staying at the brand new Rotana on Saadiyat island, a luxury hotel with 327 rooms and 11 villas.
The colour of sand and the blue of the ocean are themes throughout, with acres of marble and wood.
My room (the air conditioning is silent and ultra-effective) was all white and sand, movable louvred shutters separating bathroom from bedroom, and sliding glass panels opening on to the gardens.
