"Rising tall and taking pride of place in the centre of the souk is this former royal residency, arguably the best-preserved traditional merchant’s house in Al Balad.

The ornate Naseef House was once home to none other than King Abdul Aziz, who pitched up here after his conquest of Jeddah in 1925. To accommodate the country’s founding father, the interior was adapted to include wide ramparts so that camel-mounted messengers could ride right up to the building’s impressive roof terrace, where the King liked to relax.

Now a museum and cultural centre, be sure to admire the medieval Portuguese cannons sitting near the entrance in the shade of a huge tree that was reportedly the only tree in all of Jeddah in the 1920s, when the Naseef House was known locally as the ‘house of the tree’."