On Sunday, headed out for the 10:30 mass at the church Maurice recommended. The streets were packed with people, including a bunch of little kids in white dresses and tuxes - so cute -- and people holding olive branches, which are used here instead of palms. Somehow, we walked right past the church without realizing it, and wandered around for a while, and then went in some other catholic chuch, which was not Roman Catholic but some other kind. We tried to stay for the mass but it was not only in Arabic, but really different than the masses we're used [View Full Entry]

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On Saturday, we woke up around 8, packed up and had a nice breakfast at the hotel. As we were leaving, we were torn between catching the bus back where we got off, or over near the pancake house, where we had seen a bus schedule posted outside. We asked a young guy from our hotel, and he pointed us in a third direction, so we headed off that way with some reservation. Along the way, approximately 10 taxis stopped us to yell, "Damascus, Damascus?", and then tell us "no money" to take us to the bus station. Last time we [View Full Entry]

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On Friday, we headed to Palmyra, passing up a tour offered by our hotel and taking a bus instead. As usual, our tour book made it sound much more difficult to reach than it actually was - we just walked about 20 minutes to a bus station and then grabbed the next bus, leaving 15 minutes later, directly to Palmyra, for about $6 total. Our hotel in Hama was charging people about $100 for a day trip to Palmyra, making a few stops at sites along the way - which is something we're getting tired of anyway after 2 days being [View Full Entry]

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On Thursday morning, we got up early to head to Crac de Chavelliers, which is a really interesting site a couple of hours from Hama. We ate breakfast at the hotel, but should have known better, because Ibrahim stopped at this roadside stand with a circular pit oven, where two women were making extremely good breakfast sandwiches. We were stuffed, but have learned the hard way that syrians will not take no for an answer when it comes to offering food. And more food, and more food... reminds me a lot of my Italian relatives. :) We got to see how [View Full Entry]

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On Wednesday, we headed out for our tour of Qala'at Samaan - which is a chuch from the 5th century dedicated to St. Simon, who spent 36 ye on top of various pillars. After he died, his followers built the church around the last pillar he was on. Then we headed to various "Dead Cities" which are ruins of very large cities dating to the Byzantine empire. We were up very far into northern syria, near the mountains that mark the Turkish border. It was a gorgeous sunny day and a perfect time to be outside wandering around 1500 year old [View Full Entry]

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On Tuesday we got a really lazy start to make up for the chaos of the day before. We had to switch hotels because the Tourist was booked, and then had a late breakfast at an outdoor cafe looking out over the citadel, next to a sort of promenade, where we sat and people-watched. On Tuesdays, museums and sites are closed, so we couldn't go inside the citadel. After breakfast, we walked past the great mosque in town and saw some other tourists go in, so we decided to follow them. It was really interesting to be inside - I had [View Full Entry]

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Monday was a very long but eventful day of travel, hanging out at the border, and talking with lots of friendly syrians. We started the day with an excellent breakfast quesadilla-type things that seems popular in both Lebanon and Syria. It's just melted cheese in a fresh flat bread, made on a big circular grill-type thing. Then our hotel owner talked us out of trying to see sites on our way to the border at Damascus, which turned out to be a very good thing. So we set out in a minibus to Homs, just a bit north of the border [View Full Entry]

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El monasterio de Mar Musa (San Moisés) data de mediados del siglo VI y es de rito siriaco. FUe restaurado en el 1058 y en el siglo XV y tiene frescos de los siglos XI y XII. En el siglo XIX fue abandonado hasta que en los años 1990 el P. Paolo, un jesuita italiano, inició la rastauración. Fui la primera vez en el año 2001 cuando era profesor en Beirut, ahora sigo yendo, una vez me dejaron la habitación del obispo y el P. Paolo me ha nombrado Hermano Honorario. Más información en http://www.deirmarmusa.org/ Mar Musa Munasteri VI yüzyilinda yapilmisti, [View Full Entry]

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After Palmyra, we headed back westward to the town of Hama. Hama is known for its large norias or waterwheels. The norias were once used to raise water from the low-lying Orontes river into aqueducts that delivered the water to agricultural areas and gardens. The main attaction of Hama for us was as a jumping off point for sites in the region. We also enjoyed many cheap ($1) tasty chicken shwarmas. Krak des Chevaliers is a large castle that was once of great strategic importance. Whoever occupied this post overlooking the Homs Gap (break between the mountains to the north [View Full Entry]

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Syria exceeded our expections in all ways. Great food, amazing sites, good transportation, cheap and the Syrians themselves were excellent hosts. Fair prices and honest, tolerant people, what a treat! We travelled to Damascus from Amman on a cold, dark and rainy day. Our passports were scrutinized carefully for Israeli stamps and Canadians get hammered with a 56USD charge for a 15 day visa at the border. Our initial survey of hotels in Damascus had us worried, not what we would call budget rates, but eventually we managed to find a reasonable place. Fortunately it had a heater since ne [View Full Entry]

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