There is a very large palace complex on the hills next to the UNESCO site, with with huge gates and heavy security. I assume some royal prince lives there. One of the gates seemed to have a lot of construction equipment and trucks around it, and after we passed it I looked back and saw this palace under construction.

Old Diriyah is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the original home of the Saudi royal family, a fascinating place to visit and only about a 10-minute drive from our house. We wanted to see if the UNESCO site was open yet as it had been undergoing restoration for several years. It was supposed to be finished in 2014, then April 2015, and now I think we’ll be lucky to see it before we leave Saudi Arabia in a year. But much work has been done, and the town seems to be reinventing itself in anticipation of a heavy flow of domestic tourists once the site is finished. I took this next series of pictures while walking around parts of the town (at the height of the afternoon heat, I must add!).

Another part of the palace complex we saw a year and a half ago: