JEDDAH City Tour, SAUDI ARABIA SA جدة‎

Hello and welcome back to Jeddah. In this video I'm going to be exploring a lot more of the sites in the city and I'm starting here in Al Balad which is old Jeddah and it's a UNESCO world heritage site and has some absolutely spectacular buildings. So let's walk around for a bit and soak in what it's all about. I'm lost for words already. Cobbled streets and look at the design of many of these houses. The architecture is so beautiful. The most famous one, Nasif House, is just behind me. The big tree that you can see there was the only tree in the whole of Jeddah as recently as 1920 and it's where the country's founding father King Abdul Aziz lived. Walking up the steps to the main entrance here which is so impressive. A huge place. I'm told that King Abdul Aziz had at least 45 sons which is quite an achievement. Wow smells beautiful. You'll find everything here from footwear to exotic spices to traditional clothes of the different communities that still live within the old city of Jeddah and it's where many pilgrims after coming to the port of Jeddah would make their way through on the way to Bab Mecca, the gate that they would walk underneath on their journey towards Mecca itself. The Roshan in Arabic or wood lattices in English are the most pretty part of al-Balad on all the buildings. The different colours that they all have. We've now walked far enough to reach the food market which is where back in the day many pilgrims would pick up food on their way to Mecca and stock up on goods for their long journey and now today it's still thriving and it's still the exact same road only things have advanced a bit more since then. Having walked down old Mecca road we're now here at Bab Mecca which looks absolutely stunning behind me here. A little bit gritty around it I have to say but this is historically very important. It is the gate that the pilgrims would pass under on their way to Mecca having stocked up on their goods and arrived at the port of Jeddah. Over the last 14 centuries billions of pilgrims have passed underneath it on their road to the ancient city. So I've just left al-Balad the old city and I'm on my way to catch the sunset by the floating mosque the al-Rahman mosque but before I go there I just wanted to quickly show you the creek of Jeddah here which is this beautiful area with sand a lot of families hanging out there's boats and jet skis across the way and generally a great vibe especially here in the holidays. Across the way here you might be able to see the kingdom tower in the distance which was a project that started a few years ago to become the tallest building in the world after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. That project is currently on hold but at one time it was supposed to be the future tallest building in the world maybe one day it will be overlooking the creek of Jeddah and the Red Sea too. I've now moved on slightly just 10 minutes drive from the creek and I'm now by the al-Rahman mosque which appears to be floating on water that's why it's known as the floating mosque here in Jeddah and behind me the sun just disappearing beneath the horizon there in the distance beautiful setting a perfect time to take a look and get pictures and visit and see all the people cool breeze as you can see my hair is flying everywhere around right now and again families and couples all relaxing around as you could hear when I walked in there the call to prayer just went so I wasn't able to show you much of the inside of the mosque I did take just this one clip that you're watching right now you can see here I'm panning up towards the ceiling beautiful chandeliers in there and the men going in to pray great place to come at sunset also at sunrise if you pass by here you will find very few people and it will be a really nice place to come and take a look at here in Jeddah welcome back to al-Balad the old town I'm about to explore in the evening and the night when the markets come alive and there's more people it's a bit more hustle and bustle we'll head to the Bedouin market and see all the fresh foods and it'll be full of locals and hopefully a different perspective to the more prettiest side that the daylight shows look at this all the lizards painted onto the wall super nice an incredible look to all the buildings so this here is the Bedouin market it's very old still here today of course thriving as ever and has invited me into his shop wow beautiful yeah these patterns in the Bedouin market here shop all the different types of dates they look incredible what a great souvenir they would be to bring back and he's got the skills very good it's a dark one nice and juicy there's dates all over the street in fact this is the date market that runs along down here they see me taking footage of one shop and then everybody wants their shop to be involved so I'm going to walk over to this guy here wow those dates are massive take a look at this oh wow a really big one to try thank you look at the size of that are they bringing me more dates wow look at that Arabian hospitality huh okay let's try this one wow it's really tough very good very good speak English yes yeah hello Jason welcome to Saudia Shukran Shukran thank you yes this is a very nice old fashion they are all Saudia and Bab Mecca your English is good your English is good little little speaking it's okay yes but the first time is Emirates no UAE first time first time you are first time there yes very nice welcome welcome you can see all the bags with spices and nuts beautiful in fact an entire shop this is where they're making the proper flatbread it's right there into the oven look at that checking out a lot of kids in this area all playing video games on the street how cool is that get out appears to be Yemeni and Sudanese kids running around the fire with sticks for some kind of celebration in charge of this and we just asked him what this is all about and he said that they actually do weddings and perform and do these dances using the sticks and they're just practicing and creating an atmosphere here in the local neighborhood just for fun so that's why everyone's just enjoying themselves it sounds better when you heat up the drum that's why they're putting it above the flames you