Weekend in Bahrain

Last weekend (the arabic one) I was in Bahrain. The company paid for everything because with our current visa, we are not allowed to stay in Saudi for more than 28 days. This means that one has to leave the country and return in order to get a new stamp in the passport and, in our case, the company normally sends us to spend the weekend either in Dubai or in Bahrain. As a colleague and I were reaching the limit, our last weekend was a bit different.
Bahrain is one of the smaller Gulf states. It's a small island in the Persian Gulf, on the west coast of Saudi Arabia and is linked to the Arabic Peninsula by a 20km long bridge. It rapidly modernized after oil was discovered and it got its independence from Britain in 1971. It's the fastest growing economy in the Middle East and, notoriously, it doesn't rely on oil production only, as it's the fastest growing financial center in the Middle-East as well. It is also one of the freest countries in the Arab World and you can tell...

We had no plan, we just explored the capital and surroundings, walked a lot (and sweat a lot) and spent one afternoon at the beach:) Atop, a picture of a busy road in Manama, the capital and another one of the 'Dual Towers' of the Bahrain Financial Harbor.