Palmyra - Time now for some Roman ruins and a history lesson. After leaving our desert camp in Wadi Rum we drove further North into Syria until we arrived at the ruins of Palmyra which is also the name of the adjacent town. Palmyra dates to before the 1st century BC with many of the ruins and monuments having been built during the reign of the Nabateans and eventually the Romans invaded and conquered the area and built what must have been a magnificent outpost of the Roman Empire. We spent the afternoon wandering the site and eventually made our way [View Full Entry]

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After all the reports I’d heard about Aleppo, most of which were more negative than positive, or at best boiled down to the phrase ‘interesting, not beautiful’, I was not expecting to want to spend a lot of time exploring the city, however I was pleasantly surprised to find Aleppo both interesting and beautiful, and the two days we spent there left me wanting more, and intending to return for a weekend whenever we find the time. Our friend Sam arrived in Aleppo at the same time as us, so on our arrival into the out of town bus station late [View Full Entry]

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Finally the Middle East, after a few weeks galivanting around Europe in an erratic, expensive and unblogged sort of way I had finally arrived in the destination I had planned to come to for months and had done no planning for beyond the rough outline of a route. Isn't travel fun! Aleppo (Halep) I'll admit it, I wasn't much of a fan of Aleppo. For reasons unknown to me (it could actually have been a number of things really, culture shock, missing someone, tiredness) the city and I did not really click. While the famed Souq was nice in parts it [View Full Entry]

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When we arrived in Damascus, the tour ended for part of the group. So we all had a little party around the truck to say good-bye. I spent most of my time in cities while in Syria. Damascus is said to be the oldest city in the world. It is very large and the people there are very friendly. I spent most of my time wondering around Old Damascus. I saw one of the largest mosques that I have ever seen. The inside courtyard was very detailed with lots of mosaic work. Simone and I went inside the mosque and for [View Full Entry]

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After living in Syria for over six weeks we finally got round to exploring some more of the country in our holidays last week, when Becka, Everitte and I set off all alone to travel to Palmyra and up the Euphrates to Aleppo. We had had rather a late night the evening before our departure due to meeting up with a couple of English guys we met in Lattakia who turned out to be great company and one of whom, James, worked for a human rights organisation in Serbia and was full of useful information and fascinating stories. We met up [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone. No Interent WiFi access so I cant transfer Image and notes frommy PC. This is just a quicktext note to give you a short update. We are in Damascus for 1 more night and then we drive to Palmyra tosee the Roman Ruins and complex,we will camp somewhere near Palmyra. Following that we have 2 nights in Allepoand hopefully I will be able to updatethe Blog then. Cheers and Kisses from David T [View Full Entry]

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Since getting back from Jordan three weeks ago I have been too busy to blog, which presents a dilemma, because it of course means that I have an awful lot to blog about, so will have to try and resist the unnecessary level of detail I usually feel the need to include, and go for a lovely brief overview. We arrived back in Damascus after our week in Jordan on Saturday night and on Monday evening our friend Ali, a lovely half-Arab, half-Pakistani guy from SOAS, who is in the same class as Becka and I, invited us to go with [View Full Entry]

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Met Mike from airport late Friday night. Nothing pretty about Damascus Airport, in fact it was particularly unpleasant. As the great Douglas Adams noted, it can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the phrase, 'as pretty as an airport.' Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. Damascus Airport fell into the latter category. Day 15 (Saturday): Damascus Visited Ummayad mosque in Damascus, putting on Islamic dress in the amusingly titled 'Putting on Funny Clot [View Full Entry]

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On our wedding day, I said that I considered myself the luckiest man in the world as, in my opinion, I was marrying the most beautiful woman in the world. Now it just so happens that having arrived in Syria there are at least 20 million other people that are also of the same opinion. At first I think Dee enjoyed the celebrity status to which she had escalated on receiving her rightful title of the most beautiful woman in the world (from hereon I will simply abbreviate to TMBWITW). But she quickly got tired of the extra attention and just [View Full Entry]

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Hmmm... bit lost for words, maybe because its before dinner time and i know i shouldnt blog before dinner as all im thinking about is shish towuk and garlic and fatoush.... YYYUUUMMMM I hate to say it, but Damascus didn't impress me all that much. I dont know where these travellers get the idea that Syrians are so welcoming and that Syria is a fantastic place to visit. Perhaps its luck of the pot and who you met and what mood your in (i think i was extremely tired in Syria, must have been the walks in Palmyra) But Damascus was [View Full Entry]

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