Fujairah City

As the bare, rugged foothills of the Hajar Mountains give way to the coast, Fujairah City's line of mid-rises and office blocks rises up from the arid plain. The commercial hub for Fujairah emirate, its busy main street, Hamad Bin Abdullah Rd, is a muddle of worn strip-malls and semi-flashier glass and steel running down to the sea while the northern waterfront is hemmed in by vast fields of circular oil-storage containers. It's not the prettiest place in the world, but it's worth a look as you pass through for the archaeological collection housed in its old-fashioned museum and the tiny fort, looking decidedly out of place on the edge of the city sprawl.