Saudi Arabia: Al Balad, Jeddah's historical old town
- Where To Go Next By I&P
- Oct 30, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 31, 2022
Something you have to know when visiting Islamic countries is that their weekends are Fridays and Saturdays. So if you are planning to visit Jeddah on a Friday morning, plan your activities in the afternoon, as most of the stores and malls are closed until at least 2pm.
In the morning, we still tried to visit Al Balad, the historical old town and one of UNESCO's World Heritage sites but, after a 10 minutes walk, we started regretting it a little as it was crushingly hot and completely deserted. It was still nice to discover the covered balconies of Al Balad and the former city gates.
We then decided to spend some time in a cafe on the Corniche, followed by lunch at a seafood restaurant in the Red Sea Mall (yes, this mall was one of the top things to see in Jeddah!).
The food was delicious but it was upsetting to see so much use of plastic all over the place - to eat the crab and shrimp we had a plastic tablecloth, bibs, gloves and even a plastic bag to replace the plate. We had already noticed similar behavior in Jordan where there were empty plastic bottles discarded everywhere on the streets and plastic bags were still distributed in supermarkets - cashiers were surprised and even found it funny (but they were probably laughing at us) when we took out our reusable bag.
The rest of the Red Sea Mall looks like a typical shopping mall with a food court filled with families, the only difference being that the women are completely dressed in black - all wearing an abaya (a full body robe-like dress that just covers the body) and also wearing either an hijab (a headscarf covering the hair and neck but leaving the face visible) or a niqab (a veil that hides the whole face except the eyes).
Out of respect, we complied with the dress code for tourists (both women and men have to cover their knees and shoulders) and we never had any issues.
We arrived in Al Balad by the north gate, Bab Jadid, around 6pm, after nightfall. It was still weirdly deserted with just a few more people than in the morning and very few shops open. We were about to go back to the hotel when we finally discovered where everyone had been hiding. The main street near the Nassif House was full of people going about their lives on the way to the local market. There, we found lots of people and plenty of small local stores selling mainly carpets, beauty products, fabrics, clothing and shoes.
It was a nice area to end our walk before dinner. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any local food spots so we had to find another place to eat. We ended up going to this very well decorated Turkish restaurant called Bursa Iskender that had specialities like pides and knafeh.
After one last stroll along the Corniche, we went back to the hotel to get some rest.
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