Boulevard World is a flagship zone of the annual Riyadh Season, a large-scale entertainment festival typically running from October to March. This temporary theme park is conceived as a global tour, featuring elaborate pavilions and replicas of international landmarks that evoke destinations from Venice to Tokyo. Beyond the architectural simulations, the zone offers a condensed experience of global cultures through themed dining, shopping, and live performances. Centred around a vast artificial lagoon, it functions as a major attraction within the wider festival, which transforms the city with concerts, sporting events, and numerous other entertainment districts.

NDK is one of, if not the, most emblematic buildings in Sofia. Its name stands for National Palace of Culture, and if you’re strolling along Vitosha Boulevard, it’s only a short walk away. Locals gather in the surrounding park to skateboard, dance, relax at nearby cafés and enjoy sunny days whenever the weather allows. The building itself hosts concerts, theatre performances, exhibitions and many other artistic and cultural events throughout the year. If you’re arriving by metro, simply get off at NDK Station, which shares the same name, you can’t miss it.

Al-Masmak Palace is a clay and mud-brick fortress whose pivotal role in Saudi history belies its modest scale. Built around 1865, it was the site of the daring 1902 raid that led to the recapture of Riyadh, a foundational event for the modern kingdom. The spearhead from that assault remains embedded in its main gate. Today, the palace functions as a museum, its former residential quarters and majlis displaying historical photographs, weapons, and multimedia exhibits that chronicle the story of the nation's unification.

Encircled within a courtyard of modern dwelling buildings, Rotunda of St George is the oldest preserved structure in the city, which has also been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. The beautiful cupola holds a fourteenth-century portrait of Christ surrounded by four angels.