Qishlah

We hope this immense fort-like palace will reopen one day. Impossible to ignore, the Qishlah (from the Turkish word for 'barracks') sits in the heart of Hail's old town. The two-floor mud palace with 8.5m-high walls and eight watchtowers was built in the 1930s as barracks for King Abdul Aziz' troops; it later became a prison and briefly opened as a historic monument. Despite being closed, it is still worth admiring from outside.