The United Arab Emirates? Most Luxurious New Hotel Isn?t in Dubai or Abu Dhabi?It?s in SharjahThink of United Arab Emirates and you probably think of Dubai: gleaming towers, palm-shaped islands, air-conditioned mega-malls?Vegas on the Gulf. And yet Sharjah, Dubai?s northern neighbor, just 10 miles from the airport calls to mind?.

We?ll forgive you for being unfamiliar with the lesser-known emirate?it?s more conservative (no cocktail bars here) and sleepier after all, and though the art world knows it for its Biennial, it?s never had a nice place to stay the night. Until now.  With the opening of Al Bait Sharjah, a Leading Hotels of the World property and the emirate?s first luxury resort, Sharjah now offers a delightful rejoinder to Dubai?s glass and glitz.Managed by GHM, which operates a sister hotel, the Chedi Muscat, in Oman, Al Bait sits along a waterfront canal in the heart of old Sharjah, a neighborhood of whitewashed, early 19th-century buildings hewed from coral bricks that have been faithfully restored. Steps from the hotel?s entrance, an ancient souk where Bedouins once gathered on camelbacks today houses textile shops and tailors, modern boutiques and perfumeries inside vaulted storefronts. Emirati men wearing flowing white dishdasha sip coffee and play cards in the social club next door, as the muezzin?s evocative prayer call pierces the desert air from an adjacent mosque.Centrally situated within this walkable heritage district, Al Bait feels like its own...