The King Abdullah Financial District and the Diplomatic Quarter are the business end of the city, 35 to 45 minutes from the airport: the Four Seasons in the Kingdom Centre, the Ritz-Carlton in its palace grounds, the Fairmont and the Hyatt Regency in Olaya. Diriyah, on the north-west edge, is where the new luxury hotels are opening beside the UNESCO-listed At-Turaif, and it is quieter at night than the centre. For a long weekend, a villa in the Diplomatic Quarter looks over Wadi Hanifa; for meetings in KAFD, a hotel within walking distance saves the drive across town.<\/p>\n
At-Turaif, the mud-brick birthplace of the Saudi state, is the one sight not to skip; go at dusk when the walls are lit. The Edge of the World, a cliff line over the Tuwaiq escarpment, is ninety minutes north-west by four-wheel drive and best as an afternoon trip into sunset. Boulevard City carries the restaurants, cinemas and concerts of Riyadh Season from October to March. The National Museum and the Masmak Fort fill a morning; the Kingdom Centre sky bridge fills ten minutes with the best view of the city. With a free day, Wadi Hanifa on the edge of town has new parks and waterside restaurants, and AlUla is about an hour and a half by air and worth a day of its own.<\/p>\n
The private terminal has chauffeured cars at the door, and the hotels send their own. The city is built for the car: distances are long, the new metro helps on the Olaya and KAFD axis, and traffic peaks from 7 to 9 in the morning and 4 to 7 in the evening. Allow an hour to the airport at those times. Ride-hailing apps work reliably; a car with a driver is the calmer option for several meetings in a day.<\/p>\n
The weekend is Friday and Saturday, and business runs Sunday to Thursday. Alcohol is not available anywhere, and none may be brought in. Dress is conservative in public, though the rules for visitors have relaxed since 2019. The riyal is pegged to the US dollar and cards are accepted everywhere. Riyadh is two hours ahead of central Europe in winter and one in summer, so a morning departure from Europe lands mid-afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Riad ist ein unkompliziertes Langstreckenziel, sobald die Landegenehmigung vorliegt: ein Flughafen rund um die Uhr mit eigenem Privatterminal, ein Nonstop-Flug von f\u00fcnf bis sechseinhalb Stunden aus fast ganz Europa und eine Stadt, die sich Besuchern ge\u00f6ffnet hat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":58027,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-57999","destination","type-destination","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n