Damascus

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Click on Full View for photos....


We spent quite a lot of time here in the end - especially as we didn't get to Beirut ( don't get me started on that one...) but we did fall in love with this city and the people we met. We stayed in a fab little hotel - the Afamia - ten minutes walk from the old town and the huge souk, and a few minutes walk in the opposite direction to Central - the more modern district, with all the chemists. Important fact, that. Remember it if you go to Damscus - you'll find out why.

We stopped every day at a leafy corner cafe, raised up from the pavement - the equivalent of an English pub garden without the booze. We loved that too. And the fact that everwhere we went, there was music, or loud people booming at each other. It was busy and hectic, but not London bad-tempered hectic. And we loved the noisy, totally mad vortex that is the souk. And the Grand Mosque and everyone we talked to. And we were especially happy to have met the owner of the Afamia, who generously allowed us to stay in his other, very up-market hotel - the Beit after our Beirut trip fell through.Damascus is that kind of place.

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Photos

Prom dress? Wedding dress?
Ball gowns hanging up next to the bad art and travel bags and fridge magnets...

Old town, Souk
With a political message written on English and in Arabic, re support for the Turkish Flotilla hanging from the roof

Book Street, Damascus
Just around the corner from where we stayed

Finally, a beer!
At theNational Museum garden...

Boy scout we talked to
He's the one looking straight at the camera - and later, he had a happy, lively chat to Rob on video

Bookshop
rows and rows of beutifully decorated Korans

Leaving the Souk
at the end of the day...

Leila's, where we ate after dark on the roof
or in here during the day. Find it at the bottom of the souk, just behind the Grand Mosque - wine and beer!

Evening at the Mosque
We loved the way it looked as the sun went down at the end of the day...
a huge golden edifice shimmering against the dark blue sky

In the Grande Mosque
Inside the wonderful Mosque at the end of the Souk.

Comments

[Rob]

A very rare moment...
Looking happy? Tired, old and broke more like... sort of a look of resignation

[ZenaF]

Oh but...
...you were happy - hot, exhausted and dreamy happy. I remember...