Having scoured the web to find things to do in Qatar we found out that there was a museum of modern art with a free bus shuttle to the Museum of Islamic art,a building which dominates the shore overlooking the corniche set in a lovely waterside park that we always visit. So it seemed a good idea to take a taxi there,then the bus to the MIA meet Angharad after work and go the souk opposite for dinner. Which is what we did.
The museum was absolutely stunning .It is set in Education City,not far from angharad,although she has never been. It is unsurprisingly a vast educational complex with universities,schools and the qatar foundation but tucked away in the middle of a huge building site is the museum. it looks unfinished but that is deliberate,there are some installations outside and what appears to be scaffolding around the entrance but this is part of the design. inside there is a vast collection of modern arabic art that had been amassed by a local sheik and on this occasion a retrospective of an iraqi artist Dia Al Azzawi. His work drew on arabic symbols and culture until exile from the coup in the 1960's forced to austria and then london where he really blossomed discovering new techniques and using all forms of media has produced works that have been influenced by the ever more disturbing events in the arab world( iraq,beirut,palestine etc) The latter works are vast and individually fill a room the size of an aircraft hangar. we caught the free bus all the way to the MIA,the only passengers,and strolled along the shore to a lovely spot for coffee overlooking the bay towards all the futuristic skyscrapers where we met up with Angharad. In the park is another art museum which housed some more of Al Azzawi's work,in particular the larger works. Both museums were free and we were virtually the only ones there. After that it was a short walk to the souk where we enjoyed an iraqi meal in a restaurant we'd been to before but this time they had patio heaters as opposed to the parasols previously.