After many years I revisited Al Zubarah on a stopover day in Qatar. This time I could enter the country without an expensive on arrival visa, which lightened my mood. Hurray World Cup, I guess.

I am usually too lazy to double check opening hours I find on Google Maps with a second source. Usually, this is fine. This time, that caused some additional driving. When I arrived around 10am, the guard told me, that due to the heat they will only open the archaeological site at 3pm. No bus driver or guide on site, so nothing to negotiate there. As I also planned to visit the National Museum and had my flight in the evening, I decided to drive back to Doha, visit the museum and come again at 3pm. Clyde would be proud about my driving efforts.

When I arrived, bus and driver were on site, but we had to wait for the guide. Upon his arrival I had to convince the guide to start at 3.30pm and not later (had a flight to catch) and that I would not die from a heat stroke. So I went with guide and bus driver and of course no other visitors to the site and got a private tour (for free). A special thanks to these two guys for their effort.

Unfortunately there is still not much to see. Around 90% of the site are not excavated so far and not much is left from the buildings they found so far. At least they digged out/reconstructed parts of the town wall.