Not to miss

Grand Mosque

This mosque, with the tallest minaret in town, might appear to be as old as the Dubai Museum, but it was actually built in the 1990s. The multi-domed mosque maintains the style of the original Grand Mosque, which dated from 1900 and was knocked down to make way for another mosque in 1960, and its sand-coloured walls and wooden shutters blend in perfectly with the surrounding old quarter of Bur Dubai.

As well as being the centre of Dubai's religious and cultural life, the original Grand Mosque was also home to the town's kuttab school where children learnt to recite the Quran from memory. Note that it's only possible to admire the mosque from outside - interiors of mosques in Dubai and the UAE are out of bounds to non-Muslims (except for the tour at Jumeirah Mosque).

Jumeirah Beach Park

It's a real treat to take a walk on the grass at this verdant park, as it's a couple of degrees cooler than the beach. Fronting onto a long stretch of Jumeirah Beach, the beach has lifeguards on duty, a children's play area, barbecues, picnic tables, walkways and kiosks.

Deira Gold Souq

Even to people not interested in buying gold or jewellery, the Gold Souq is impressive for both its size - there are hundreds of shops here - and variety.

Every kind of jewellery imaginable is available, from gold, diamonds and pearls to elaborate Arabian and Indian wedding necklaces, bangles and headdresses, to more contemporary styles. Some of it is beautiful, lots of it is incredibly tacky. It's the largest gold market in the region, and one of the largest in the world (with ambitions to rival Antwerp in diamonds). The passing people parade is almost as fascinating as the sheer amount of jewellery. Once you're done with gawking at the blingtastic jewellery displays, take a seat on one of the wooden benches on the main thoroughfare and note how many different types of people circulate among the atmospheric wooden-latticed arcades: sun-bothered Europeans shopping for gold, blokes from the Indian subcontinent selling copy watches and fake DVDs, sweaty Afghan guys dragging heavy carts of goods here and there, East African women in colourful caftans trading something… It's all rather extraordinary.