Most museums in Kuwait close early in the evening. The Red Palace is the exception: its official page on the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters sites platform gives its hours as 8 in the morning to 11 at night. That makes it a destination that works for a Friday afternoon and a Saturday night alike, not only for the middle of the day.
Where it is
The registered address is Abdullah bin Judaan Street, Jahra, and the building is classified on the same platform as a museum. Entry is listed on the sites index with no fee.
What you will see inside
The palace is built of local mud, covers around six and a half thousand square metres, and holds thirty-three rooms arranged around open courtyards. The colour of its brick is what gave it its name.
Inside, rooms are set up as scenes: a room for sadu weaving, a room for wildlife in the Kuwaiti environment, and a model of desert traders. One courtyard holds a jleeb, the water well, and by one of the gates stand two old cannon.
Why Kuwaitis know it
It was built by Sheikh Mubarak Al-Sabah, the seventh ruler of Kuwait, and its name became tied to the Battle of Jahra in 1920, when the defenders took shelter in it. Today it sits under the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters as a cultural and historical landmark.
One piece of advice before you go
Jahra is more than half an hour’s drive from Kuwait City, so make the visit the point of the trip rather than a stop on the way. The long hours mean you can arrive after sunset when the heat drops, and in August that is a real difference.
Photo: the Red Palace in Jahra from the outside. By Zairon, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, the Red Palace page on its sites and events platform. And the Kuwait News Agency, KUNA, photo feature on the Red Palace.
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