Last year I attended the annual Yanbu Flowers and Gardens Festival, which is a spectacular display of colorful flowers and plants in the city of Yanbu.
This year's festival will be held March 14th through April 7th, 2017. There is no charge for admission.
Here in Saudi Arabia, one of my pet peeves is that it is difficult to find out about events before they happen. I believe the reason for this lack of proper advertising for events ahead of time was because of the culture's strict gender segregation policies which discourages mixed events. In the past if the religious police got wind of a questionable mixed gender event going on, oftentimes it would be raided and disbanded. Many social events were kept on the down low, and event venues were often not disclosed until the day of the event by text message. It can be very difficult to make plans to attend events like this. While gender mixing is still greatly frowned upon in this culture, things seem to be slowly changing, and there is even a Ministry of Entertainment now in the Kingdom.
You can see more photos of the amazing floral displays on my post from last year by clicking HERE.
