Further Wanderings

Our service taxi dropped us off at the international bus terminal, well east of the Damascus city centre, so we had to take a taxi into the city.  The driver was a pleasant fellow, and with our meagre skills in one-another’s languages we managed to have a bit of a chat about our time in Syria, and Lebanon and what we thought of each. 

Our drive into town showed us at least a little of what we could expect from Damascus (in the new city at least.)  It was surprisingly clean and modern looking, and was at least on par with Beirut and Istanbul in both of these respects.  At the same time, it managed to look a bit sterile (in a metaphorical sense.  Despite its RELATIVE cleanliness, it was far from spotless.)  All of these impressions of Damascus would be turned on their ears by the time we spent in the Old City.

Our taxi dropped us off at Al Merjed, near the centre of Damascus’ new city, from where it was a simple matter to find our way to the lovely hotel (a former Ottoman mansion with a beautiful and shady courtyard) that would be our home for the next few days.

 

Me and the statue comemorating Salah ad Din Himself and his many victories

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After some confusion about how to buy our tickets, when they were available for sale, whether we could take a proper bus or a microbus and where exactly we were going, we finally managed to get ourselves on the way to Homs. Ninety minutes on the bus, half an hour in a taxi across Homs to the other bus station, and forty minute more on a microbus saw us to our destination for the day, Hama, Syria’s fourth largest city, which was conveniently sited right in the middle of a whole bunch of fabulous archaeological sites. We planned to base ourselves there for a few days, making day trips out of town.

The grand collonade at Afamya with some of the pretty purple flowers that grew everywhere there.

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After a disappointingly hasty exit from Deir ez Zur, we were on our way to Palmyra.  Right out in the middle of the desert, this Roman era city is one of, if not THE tourist highlight of Syria.  Constructed in ... [Continue reading this entry]

After changing a few Euros into Syrian pounds, we got a (extrodinarily expensive, but given that we had Turkish money left to spend, that didn't matter) taxi trip to the Syrian border. As Sarah didn't have her Syrian visa yet, it ... [Continue reading this entry]