Damascus is the oldest inhabited capital city in the world, at least according to the Syrian Tourist Office. They also claim that Syria (well at least ‘geographical Syria’ - i.e. including Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and large parts of Turkey) is the origin of all culture, agriculture, language, civilisation, writing, and just about everything else, so I’m not sure how true this really is. Aleppo also claims to be the oldest inhabited city in the world - again a contentious claim, and there is apparently a fair bit of rivalry between the 2 cities over which is the oldest. I was also told there is a similar competition over which is the craziest, but Aleppo wins hands down on this one. Whilst there are parts of central Damascus around the old city that are pretty
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