Aleppo and Qalaat Simeon

Woke up on Sunday reasonably early as I was meeting Thomas and Kate (couple) at 9 so we could go to Qalaat Simeon. On arrival at the microbus station numerous people told us we needed to get a taxi but persistance paid off and we found the right bus that went to the village close to St Simeons luckily we didnt have long to wait before we set off and the bus was very popular with frequent stops to let peope on and off. The bus driver then agreed to take us up to the ruins for 200 SYP which we agreed as there didnt appear to be any taxi's around it seemed a fair price!

The ruins are of a church that was built following St Simeon's death and it is on top of hill with gorgeous views apparantly stretching to Turkey so I have seen Turkey though who knows what direction it was in! Anyhow St. Simeon was alive around 500 AD and decided that he wanted to live in a cave - this began to attract attention and pilgrims and so he started to live on pillars so that the pilgrims were not able to touch him and so on when he died his pillar was 18 metres tall and he was highly famous having spawned a copycat movement of pillar dwellings!!

The Basillica was gorgeous but it was also more ruins and I have to say that having seen a lot of incredible ruins I now feel a bit like yay more rocks but St Simeon's did make me question why someone would want to live like that but also if I decided to live like that it would be likely I would be declared a nutter and then I would probably be sectioned and so on yet he was made a saint, spawned numerous pilgrimages and had a mahmoosive church built which people still visit 1500 years later.

Anyhow it was groovy and as I arrived I bumped into Tiana who had been in Damascus so we walked around catching up and seeing the sites so that was fun. On finishing I went and sat in the cafe at the bottom to wait for T and K who were finishing wandering around.

We then found someone who would drive us back to the village and we walked out on getting to the car park we realised that we were going in a pick up truck which made me all happy! As pick up's are quite a popular form of transport this one had inbuilt benches and so we bounced around the road before turning of to see a few of the ruins that have been spawned as a result of St Simeon living there which was groovy and there were some tombs and various carvings in the rocks.

Got back to Aleppo easily enough and as it was late I decided I would quickly pop to the Bimistarn (Old mental institution - now a museum) prior to getting some food. T and K also wanted to see this and so we all went together walked there without to much trouble and entered with the help of someone knocking on the door. It was in some ways highly advanced and in other ways highly depressing - each 'ward' had rooms facing a central courtyard and depending on the severity of patients in the ward the rooms were either totally dark through to having some natural light coming in. The courtyards were very relaxing as they are across Syria and after finishing there we walked to the souq in an attempt to find some food but Aleppo appears to be the city that has no food beyond expensive boutique restaurants and a rather gross butchery section in the souk!

Anyhoo a quiet afternoon followed before I went to write my diary on the hotel roof which was gorgeous and as it got cold I went and sat outside my room in the communal area where I bumped into Kat and Dan who were on there way to Turkey so we toodled of for food which was yummy!

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