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Published: December 24th 2008
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We were allowed to have a sleep in this morning. Delicious. We didn’t have to get going until 10am this morning. So mum and dad got me out of the room at 7:15am to have breakfast. I still can’t work out how this is a sleep in. Breakfast was another interesting array of food. We had cucumber, tomatoes, cheese, bread and boiled eggs and omelettes.
After breakfast we took a brief stroll down the corniche of Tartus. The cornniche of Tartus wasn’t exactly a glory spot. They are in the process of constructing a series of breakwaters and mini ports around the corniche which is actually going to make it quite pretty in the end. However ones overarching impression of Tartus is of a place that is pretty run down and in need of a bit of TLC. Throughout all of Syria we have noticed that nothing seems to be completed. None of the houses have completed roofs and everywhere that you go there is rubbish all around. Varying from construction rubbish to plastic bags.
Abdul picked us up at 10am and we headed off to Lataykia which is only 1 hour up the coast. Lataykia is apparently the
third largest city in Syria, after Damascus and Aleppo. On the way here we noticed that the houses were becoming bigger and better constructed. The farmland also seemed to be somewhat richer and more prosperous.
We do seem to have the problem however that our hotels seem to be going down hill somewhat. We did start off in a glorious hotel in Damascus (the Four Seasons) and that seems to have ruined us somewhat for all the rest of the hotels that we have stayed in. Lataykia is a beach resort and the hotel that we are staying in tonight is right on a beautiful little beach. The sand of the beach looks glorious, however we can’t go outside and appreciate it we are in the middle of a thunderstorm.
We visited the ruins at Urgarit this afternoon. And they were gorgeous. This was the first time that we hadn’t been asked if we wanted a guide through the ruins. I am sure that if we visiting in the high season that we would have been asked if we would like a guide, however since we were visiting in the middle of the low season, with the added
complication of a thunderstorm, we had nobody ask us if we needed a guide. And we would have greatly liked one as well.
The ruins looked glorious and are dated at 1400 BC. However they are not overly well signposted and we struggled a little bit to find out way around. What we could work out is that there was a grand entrance to the city through a fortress. The fortress entrance was through an imposing stone triangle and weaved it way up some steps twisting and turning around a little bit to confuse invaders. From the fortress you would then move into the Royal Palace that was 10,000 m2. There are also numerous houses and other areas of the city that have also been uncovered. On top of one part of the tell where the city is located is an acropolis upon which is located 5 temples. Two of them being dedicated to the God Baal and another to Dagan. This is the same god Baal that the temple at Palmyra was dedicated to.
Our visit to Urgarit was a little hampered by the rain and wind and as the ruins were totally exposed to the elements
it was a little difficult to navigate our way around.
As we pulled up to our lunch venue for the day and hopped out of the car the most amazing bolt of lightning hit the sky and thunder cracked across the sky. And that started the thunderstorms for the rest of the day.
And they continued for the next few hours. It has been amazing lying in the hotel room looking out across the water watching the sky light up with lightning to then hear the thunder crash above you at the same time. It doesn’t sound like the storm is going anywhere soon.
When we went down to dinner tonight it was to discover that the restaurant had become partially flooded. We had to paddle our way across the restaurant floor to a table that was out of the flood. Tres amusing.
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