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ROYAL RUIN
Inside Saudi King’s £300million abandoned Marbella palace once home to ruler’s 13 wives with hospital, helipad & mosque
The vandalised abandoned palace was home to all 13 of the Kings different wives
A SPRAWLING palace in Marbella once home to the 13 wives of Saudi Arabia's king has been left to rot for nearly two decades.
The now-crumbling Mar-Mar Palace once had its own hospital, helipad and even a mosque.
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Back in 1982, King Fahd built his very own White House replica in Costa Del Sol, Marbella, overlooking the sea.
YouTube explorer Jake - who shares videos of his adventures exploring abandoned buildings on YouTube - managed to sneak into the palace and told The Sun he has had his eye on it since 2018.
But up until last year, the palace was closely guarded by dogs and security guards.
When Jake finally visited, the palace was caked in dust and widely vandalised - but remnants of its former glory remained.
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The King's summer getaway was designed to have a grand entrance of marble stairs, which still remain intact.
But little of the palace's magnificence remains.
Speaking to The Sun, Jake said the handles and door knobs around the building "were definitely real 24k gold" - also known as pure gold.
The King would use the palace to host extravagant events with his 13 wives, 3,000 family and friends, and a huge staff of 500.
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And they were all provided with luxury accommodation.
But the once plush royal home now stands desolate at the top of the mountains in Marbella on a strip known as the "Golden Mile".
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HAVE a look at other eerie abandoned places across the globe:
Olympic venues: From the deserted stadia of Rio 2016 to the rotting Athens 2004 basketball courts, many Olympic venues tend to be left to rot once the Games are over.
Eerie images from past Winter and Summer Games show the derelict ruins from the likes of Berlin 1936, Sarajevo 1984 and Turin 2006.
They truly have to be seen to be believed, and should act as a warning to Paris 2024 organisers.
Majorca club: Once the host of parties of 10,000 people with half-naked dancers, the Dhraa nightclub, located near the popular Cala Millor strip has now been left to rot .
The party venue first opened its doors in 1984 and used to attract thousands of holidaymakers, celebrities and famous performers.
The massive building is now nothing but ruins, sticking out in the middle of the bustling Spanish party central.
Pele's mansion: Football legend Pele's £1.1million mansion has now been left to rot after the player's death.
The late star's once-luxurious home in Brazil's coastline is now a graveyard of memories of lovers, football, and a debt of thousands of pounds after his family took over the mansion.
For over 40 years, Pelé's haven was his mansion situated in an exclusive condominium in Guarujá, in the São Paulo state.
Soviet ghost town: In the heart of Latvia's dense forests lies the ghostly remains of an abandoned Soviet town that once stood as a secret sentinel of the Cold War era.
Conceived in the tense atmosphere of the 1960s, Skrunda-1 was built to house the operators of an early warning radar system, designed to detect incoming missiles from the West.
For decades, the clandestine city was shrouded in secrecy, with its very existence denied by Soviet authorities.
The plot was previously worth over £300million - with 200 acres of land, four villas, a string of swimming pools, a heliport, a private clinic, and even a mosque.
Jake told The Sun: "It was surreal how big the place was. It was a shock really to see how the King lived."
"The King's bedroom was filled with large-scale electrics, old boxes, wallpaper torn down.
"I found paperwork of the King's maids being paid 200,000 euros a month for their service of being a housekeeper."
After years of disuse, the luxuries of the palace have been vandalised - with many of the buildings shattered.
"Tables and chairs were destroyed and had graffiti over them, the back garden was overgrown with weeds, built up with thick layers of mud," Jake said.
Jake added "it was very obvious someone used to live here, which made this feel so realistic and surreal as old t-shirts, shoes, chairs were lying about".
"This was all vandalised," he said.
"it was obvious many people had broken in and stolen his belongings since his death in 2005."
On the King's death, Marbella held three days of mourning.
And there is now a public street named after him.
King Fahd is remembered for bringing in a huge amount of revenue to Marbella on his grand visits.
Elsewhere, a massive 52-room castle with a giant swimming pool and a ballroom has been abandoned for decades after its owner went rogue.
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Another palace on the Italian coastline has been left to rot a century after it was built.
And a crumbling abandoned palace once home to King Charles' family has been left to rot by its new Russian owners.
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