Prince Abdelaziz Bin Fahd and his connection with the Alhambra

Prince Abdelaziz Bin Fahd (49) is the youngest and favorite son of the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.

Abdelaziz was, like his father, in love with Spain and when he visited him in summers at his Mar Mar palace in Marbella, he used to stop in Granada to contemplate a monument that was his obsession: the Alhambra.

Desperate to make his dream come true, he made a decision: to build his own Alhambra in the desert, a millionaire whim that King Fahd granted to his favorite son. The chosen location was a plot on the outskirts of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, of 10.6 hectares.

The sumptuous palace was covered with 1.6 million bricks, 500 white marble columns from the Almeria firm Camar, and more than 4,500 m² of floor tiles. Of the 13 fountains, the mythical Fountain of the Lions was the most laborious to imitate: it required Camar personnel to travel to Arabia to set the materials.

You can read the complete news article in the newspaper *El Mundo*: King Fahd: the exact copy of the Alhambra in Riyadh