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Souq Al-Hamidiyya
Complete with bullet-holes in ceiling. It is claimed Damascus is the oldest continually inhabited city in the world - the name evokes all sorts of mystical images; majestic buildings, trade routes and caravans, markets and mosques. The modern day central city is built on top of literally thousands of years of other buildings. The rest of Syria is also strewn with historic buildings, ruins and castles from years of rule by empires more numerous than I can be bothered writing down here. On the other hand, Syria was branded a 'rogue state' by the US following September 11, though it is now off that particular list. The country has opened up and become more moderate over the last 10 years and the travel books and internet reviews all rave and froth at the mouth about how friendly the local people are. It seemed like Syria would be worth a visit. If we needed any more reason, you need to go through Syria to get from Jordan to Turkey; a place Alex and I are both really looking forward to going to.
The border crossing Alex described in the last blog had left us all grumpy and hoping we'd made the right choice in coming to
Fav restaurant
Where we ate four or five times even though they always short changed us (they had wifi). View from courtyard up to mezzanine level. Syria. Moods didn't improve as we went to search for reasonably priced accommodation in Damascus. We get the impression that Syria has experienced a boom in tourism in the last five years - there are certainly plenty of European retirees wandering around. Our trusty 2008 Lonely Planet (yes, we look like travel-dorks wandering the streets and stopping at corners all the time to look confusedly at this book) said that prices had doubled in the preceding two years, and it seemed to us that prices had increased again. In fact they've tripled if you go anywhere that has been recommended in Lonely Planet. I hope the LP punishes them by leaving them out of the next edition!
We ended up finding somewhere that was livable but where we never felt particularly comfortable. The hotel had 'good bones' and if you looked at only the nicely painted ceiling of our room, complete with cornices picked out in matching colours, a ceiling rose and decorative light, you'd have thought we were staying in a luxury hotel. If only we could have lived in the uppermost metre of the room... the floor was dirty, the sheets were clearly not washed (we all
Typical street view
Watch out or the boys with trolleys will take your ankles off! sleep in sleeping bag liners at places like this) and the toilet soon became blocked with disastrous consequences for the odour of our room. No internet either (what is this world coming to?) At least the man running the place was friendly and in Damascus we soon appreciated this small mercy.
Why...? Well, I'll try not to turn this into a blog-whinge but having come from Jordan we were expecting much in the way of friendliness and hospitality, and we were sorely disappointed. Instead we found few people genuinely welcoming - few said hello or smiled at Phoebe (and certainly none of the gifts she was showered with in Jordan), when crossing the road the cars were more likely to try to run us down than wave us in front of them, and restaurants would mysteriously short change us time after time after time. There were exceptions but generally we were treated with a mixture of understated rudeness and indifference.
It was a short walk from our hotel to the old area of Damascus inside the city walls and we became used to finding our way through the maze of tiny narrow lanes and streets. Everything is OLD,
Praying women
Inside Umayyad mosque prayer room. a patchwork of different eras with the most recent additions of electric cable, telephone cable and cars looking out of place. The people too are clearly a mix - many, particularly young people, wear fashionable Western-style clothes, while at the other end of the scale there are many women who wear the black full-body & face chador. Everything in between too - there was even the short-skirt plus headscarf combo - modest or not? We would see all these people while walking through the kilometre long Souq Al-Hamidiyya (a market) each day on the way into the old city. The roof of this souq is littered with bullet holes from French planes trying to quell an Arab revolt early last century. In fact the French left more than war scars as there is a lingering French feel in some parts, especially the more affluent Christian quarter where we ran into a few Syrian French speakers. The central city was surprisingly sophisticated with trendy cafes, antique shops and beautiful old houses restored as restaurants and hotels everywhere, mixed in with more traditional Arabic souqs. This is certainly no uneducated, grimy backwater (well, apart from the way internet access is set up)
Pilgrims
Or so we assume. Inside the mosque and these were the only colourful robes we saw. where rudeness might be a little more understandable.
Our third day was the best, during which we visited the Ummayad mosque; one of the most beautiful mosques in the Muslim world with some amazing mosaics and an enormous carpeted prayer room. Alex loved having to dress up in a grey robe to be allowed in . I also liked the nearby tomb of the famous and feared Saladin. Later we went to one of the largest and most impressive of the restored Damascene houses. It was simply stunning with its yellow and black stone walls, courtyards and opulent rooms.
We concluded that Damascus is a pretty good place to visit if you are a rich European retiree able to stay in a beautifully restored old-town boutique hotel, while spend your days wandering the streets looking for interesting carpets, antiques and souvenirs. But it's certainly no budget backpacker haven. We were perplexed by the lack of friendliness. There is no doubt Damascus has a lot of beauty, but that wasn't enough to make it a
Damascene style house
Actually a small part of the big restored courtyard house/ museum. good destination on its own.
We decided that we'd speed through Syria as quickly as possible, going through only a few of the notable cities and only the major sites on our way to Turkey (see map in previous blog). We thought this would probably not be a bad idea anyway, as we want to avoid Roman-ruins-fatigue, castle-overdose and temple-sickness, especially as Europe has those in spades. Therefore we will go next to Palmyra - arguably the best preserved/ restored Arabic-Roman site far out in the desert, and Crac des Chevalier - a castle which our good friend Lawrence of Arabia said is the 'most perfect castle in the world'. As I'm writing this from Palymra, I'm pleased to say things have picked up in all possible ways.
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Katie Redwood
non-member comment
Crac des Chevaliers - has an 's' on the end. I wouldn't expect you monolingues to know, but next time remember your verb agreements muhahaha.