Well, today we have a “cultural” day planned. A few museums that are all in the same direction. Off we go!

We’re pretty close to the National Museum, so obviously that’s our first stop. The next museum doesn’t open until 4, so it’s perfect anyway. Or so we thought…

Again, construction. This time we try to go in anyway, but we are told that it will reopen in two days. Okay, we should still be in Riyadh, so that’s not too bad. Just kind of complicates our plans of making time in this museum before the other one opens. But whatever, no point in sitting here! Let’s goooooo!

Well we see a little park that has quite a few people sitting around and enjoying the day. It is Friday, after all, the holy day in the Muslim world. And also the reason why our next museum doesn’t open until 4 pm. Any other day of the week and it would be open at least from 9 am to 8 pm. We just had to choose today…

We keep walking and we see what looks like some old type of building construction. We’re not sure how accurate that is, but there was a sign just outside of this building that we will imagine says something about the protection of these “historic” buildings. If any arabs would like to correct our lack of Arabic, we’d be happy to know what the sign actually says!

Well, then it was on to the main event. Al Masmak Palace Museum. As we said, it’s closed. But that’s fine, the lack of people let us take all the pictures we want. 

We will explain more when it is actually open, but for now just know that it’s a cool looking building that has some obvious historical value. But we couldn’t just wait and sit here for another 1.5 hours, so let’s look around! 

Right next to Al Masmak is the Imam Turki Bin Abdullah Grand Mosque. As far as we know this is the official government mosque of Saudi Arabia and the royal family. We asked to visit inside, but security said we couldn’t enter with cameras. We couldn’t explain that we wouldn’t take any pictures or anything if allowed in, so we just left. 

When taking pictures here you have to be very careful and obvious as to what you’re taking pictures of. Why? Because behind us in the first picture is a government building that has quite a bit of security around it. We saw some people making a TikTok video, and police approached them and told them to leave. Just something to keep in mind. And the courts complex is here as well. As far as we understand… one of the squares around here is used by these courts for executions. We didn’t know this when we showed up, but apparently there are tips on the internet that say avoid the area around 9 am just in case. 

Then we just kept walking. There’s a little park that isn’t far away, so we will go there and wait until the museum opens. On our way we find…. SO many people playing cricket. It’s actually insane. We’ve never seen so many games going at once. And the fields all overlap. How they keep it straight, who knows. But they do and they’re having fun. 

But again, we’re a bit shocked at the state of the buildings in this area. Eventually we will get used to it, but for now it’s very strange. 

And then we have to cross the road… fun times. Not only are the cars going every which way in a hurry, but there’s construction. Maybe the Metro again? Either way, we have to walk along the barriers along the street to make it to our park. 

We walk along the outside of the park to the main entrance and we see the dreaded sign… “family entrance”. We go ask security if that means we can’t enter, we cannot. We walked all of this way for nothing, except to walk along the outside of what looks like a nice park. And if you zoom in you can see that there are ticket counters for both males and females, but only one is open and everyone is using it. 

Well… we guess that this is all we will see of Salam Park today. 

Back we go towards Al Masmak. On the way we see a few more construction sites, probably the metro? This one is cool looking as it is meant to mimic the old construction that would have been in historic Riyadh. 

And then we stumbled into a Souq. 

Now this was fun. We just stood here watching as this group of men did auctions on coins and bills from other countries. The man in blue would call out what was up for bid and pass it around. Then the numbers would start flying. It was so interesting to see. At first we weren’t sure about taking pictures, but then we noticed that Saudis were taking pictures and filming, so we just followed their lead. There really aren’t any obvious western tourists around Riyadh (that we’ve seen/noticed at least), so we were mostly on our own to just copy the locals. 

Then it was back to the square between the state mosque and Al Masmak, and then back to Al Masmak. It’s open and we’re ready to go in!

So, why is this important (and therefore a monument/museum)? This is the location that the Emir Abdul-Aziz bin Abdurrahman Al-Saud, along with his followers, stormed to regain control of the Arabian Peninsula, and therefore found the current Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This was the 15th of January 1902 for most of our readers, but the 5th of Shawwal 1319 in Saudi Arabia. (The calendar begins when prophet Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Madinah, so in Saudi Arabia you will often see these dates used instead of those of the Western Gregorian calendar). But, the whole history that is presented within this fort is a little more complicated than that… we will try our best to pass on what we learned. 

The First Saudi State – the history of the Al Saud family is said to trace back to 1446 where a kingdom similar to today’s geographical Saudi Arabia was established on an agreement of monotheism. This lasted for a while with some territorial expansions until the Ottomans started feeling threatened and ordered Dir’iya (the capital) to be surrounded and taken in 1817. 

Second Saudi State – the second Saudi State was established between 1824 to 1891. Generally it begins with the reconquest of the capital by Turki bin Abdullah bin Muhammad (notice the Grand Mosque is named after this ruler), but the downfall because of internal conflicts within the House of Saud. The territory that was unified during this time never reached the size of the First Saudi State.

Third Saudi State – only 10 years after the fall of the Second Saudi State the current iteration of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was established after King Abdul-Aziz stormed Al Masmak in 1902. His aim was to establish a Kingdom where there was security and stability along with sharī’a law. 

The fort is a nice little stop if you’re in the area, and it doesn’t take long to see and read all of the information available. 

Then, it was back to the market to see if anything was going on, which there was, but not the auctions. Seems like those were all long done by this point. 

Well… and maybe it had to do with something else as well. From our research before coming to Saudi Arabia, and from the phrase “Saudi Arabia was established on an agreement of monotheism” that we wrote above from the museum… we knew that Saudi Arabia was a very religious country. And that was easily seen here. When we left the market the call to prayer started. We’ve obviously heard this in many countries as Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates are all Muslim countries.. but!… so far Riyadh is the only place that we have seen that the call to prayer is observed by a majority of the population immediately. They observed the call to prayer by closing their shops and heading to the mosque. From our understanding from the Grand Mosque in Qatar (we may remember incorrectly) muslims have until the next call to prayer to perform their prayer either privately or at the mosque, but here in Saudi Arabia it seems that a large number of people perform their prayer immediately after the call to prayer. Very interesting and a different thing to witness. 

And that’s that. We’re done here and are walking back towards our hotel. The streets are paaaaacked. Both with people and cars. 

And then we made it back to the mall close to our hotel, and there was a large event going on. It’s for the Indian community living in Riyadh, but we have no idea what’s going on. All we can tell you is that it is absolutely packed and security is needed to keep the walkways clear because of all of the people. Whatever it is, there are a lot of fans. Good night from Riyadh!