The National Museum is an excellent look at Bahrain’s history that comes as a refreshing change in a region that often overlooks the period before the onset of Islam. Bahrain National Museum: centred round eight interconnecting exhibition halls, this fascinating collection of artefacts does a fairly thorough job of tracing the country’s long past. Currency Museum: with its excellent collection of coins that pre-date the Islamic era, the Currency Museum is great place to spend a few hours. The exhibition includes the first gold dinar to be issued by the Umayyad Caliph Abd Al-Malik bin Marwan at the end of the 7th century and a photo of Bahrain’s first-ever bank from 1920.
Diplomatic Area. Open: 08:00 to 14:00, Sun to Thu. Stamp Exhibition: a must for budding stamp collectors, this small exhibition certainly contains some of the more obscure postage stamps in existence. Most of the artefacts date back to the 20th century but there is also a large collection of much older seals on display too.
Ground floor, Ministry of Transportation, Diplomatic Area. Open: 07:00 to 14:00, Sun to Thu. Manama Craft Centre: an interesting and creative concept, the Manama Craft Centre is a commercial gallery within 27 entirely separate rooms run by different artists, which act as workshops and exhibitions. Each artist is offered a unit free of charge for a limited time, meaning there is a high turnover of work. Expect therefore a mish-mash of painting, stained-glass, ceramics and calligraphy among other media. The centre also includes a cafe serving traditional Bahraini drinks and snacks.
Isa Al Kabeer avenue. Open: 07:30 to 14:30, Sun to Thu. | 
