(posted by tobias)
Here is Dubai’s entry for the most beautiful setting for… a Starbucks. Actually the picture doesn’t really adequately convey the grandeur of this fantastic dome, the mosaic patterns gorgeously lit… minus the cafe, you might think it’s a Mosque, but actually it’s a Mall: the new Ibn Battuta complex, six connected ‘courts’ inspired by the architecture of various countries visited by the 14th-century geographer known as the ‘Arabic marco Polo’.
“Ibn Battuta was the only medieval traveller who is known to have visited the lands of every Muslim ruler of his time. He also travelled in Ceylon (present Sri Lanka), China and Byzantium and South Russia. The mere extent of his travels is estimated at no less than 75,000 miles, a figure which is not likely to have been surpassed before the age of steam.”
I wonder what he would have thought of the new Frappuchino flavours? Anyway, more thoughts and pics to appear shortly at my other blog…