Many people had told me The Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum is a must see whilst in Qatar. So it’s been high on  my list of things to do since we arrived. We finally found the time to visit this week.

What an incredible place. The museum is a massive collection of ‘stuff’ collected by Sheikh Faisal and his father over many years.

There are currently three very large main buildings housing the majority of the collection and some smaller rooms with additional bits. (I say currently because, like everywhere in Qatar, there are further buildings under construction).

There are fabulous antiques, unusual artefacts and some just plain everyday things.

I was totally entranced by the array of textures and colours!

And then of course there were the cars…   Some absolute beauties.

For an idea of the scale – one of the buildings houses around 100 cars, trucks & buses, 12 boats, an aeroplane, a replica of a typical Qatari home, a small church and a large collection of motorbikes & bicycles!

In another building, as well as a vast array of antique furniture from all over the world, there is a 240 year old Syrian residence, the entire thing was de-constructed for transportation and completely reconstructed inside the museum.

The diversity of the collections is quite remarkable.   From a cabinet of matchboxes to a room full of fossils.

I particularly loved the description ‘very rare – Age 60 million years’!

There are complete rooms full of weapons, costumes, saddles (for both horse & camels), paintings, religious artefacts, etc., etc..

There is just so much to see it’s really hard to take it all in!

Official website of the museum – www.fbqmuseum.org

Images copyright Sally Crane.