Outside of my experience visiting the candy factories in Aleppo, I spent most of my time in Syria sightseeing and just enjoying the atmosphere.  Because Syria is a relatively small country, it’s easy to get around and see all sorts of different things in a short time.  This entry is about a few of the things I saw, complete with pictures!

Apamea: Ancient Roman ruins… my first of the trip!  I chose to do a tour of Apamea and Crak des Chevaliers, mostly to meet people and make it theoretically easier to get around than doing it with local busses.  Often, I prefer to get around with the much cheaper public transportation, but getting to Crak sounded a bit of a pain (multiple changes, a 3km walk, etc etc.) My group was… interesting.

   An older French gentleman on a walking pilgrimage to Jerusalem defended the USA when a younger Spaniard (quite aggressively) accused me of, basically, living under a terrorist regime.  I get this on a fairly regular basis while traveling - almost entirely from Europeans.  I tend to stay quiet, but the Frenchman interjected with his memories of Americans liberating France during WWII and how his uncle and grandfather were killed by the Nazis as part of the resistance.  It was gratifying.

As for Apamea itself, I could have skipped it and not felt bad.  A lot of columns, but not much else.  Ah well.

Crak des Chevaliers:  This is much touted in all the travel literature to Syria.  They all include TE Lawrence’s quote: “perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world” - but he also wrote a (supposedly terribly boring) academic thesis on it so he was pretty much required to talk it up.  Ultimately, it was big, it had atmosphere, but… it was basically just a castle.  Our little tour group hired a guide to try and paint some images of the castle when it was occupied for us, but he mostly focused on architecture.

I wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy seeing it, but it wasn’t the highlight guidebooks paint it as.

  Hama:  A little town where you can see (and hear) giant wooden wheels turning in the river.  At least, if it’s rained recently - which it had for me!  I like Hama because it also had cheap fresh fruit juice and falafel, yum!  It makes a good base to see Cral and Apamea, and it’s also a nice stopover between Aleppo and Palmyra.  Speaking of which…

Palmyra:  One of the highlights of my trip so far.  I’m not sure why - it’s similar to other Roman ruins, albeit with a very picturesque location, surrounded by moutains and with everything glowing a bit red from the sand.  Still, something about Palmyra captured me.  Waking up to watch the sunrise (and take humorous pictures of Japanese tourists taking humorous pictures), wandering over fallen columns and temples alone after lunch, and then climbing a hill to watch the sun set over the ruins…

I think Palmyra, more than any other ruin I visited, struck me as a place where two thousand years ago, people actually lived.  Walked the streets, bought food, took bathes, worried about their families.  Or maybe I just got too much sun there.

One big plus to Palmyra is that it’s FREE!  That’s right, despite it being Syria’s premier tourist attraction, there is NO entry fee to the general ruins.  To see the temple or arena there are nominal fees, but nothing to just wander the grounds and marvel at the size of everything.

So yeah, I liked Palmyra.

Damascus:  Ah, Damascus.  It grew on me.  I spent a lot of time there uploading pictures, and not much time hitting the tourist sights.  I never visited a hamman (mostly because I went in Turkey.) I tried my hand and bargaining in the souk and failed… probably pretty badly.  I did get some beautiful brass bowls though, assuming they make the trip home.

The Umayyed Mosque is beautiful - probably my favorite part is that as a female tourist I was allowed in both them men’s AND the women’s sections!  The women’s section wasn’t separated at all from the men’s.  It sits a little behind and was extremely crowded, but very open.  I saw one couple where a mother and her child were on the edge, near the cord separating the male and female sections… and the father was on the other side, holding her hand.

  Damascus also had a LOT of cheap food - falafel and hummus stands were my favorite.  Good, relatively inexpensive fast internet sealed the deal and I spent many a day wandering the streets, eating falafel sandwichs and drinking pomegranite juice, and then uploading pictures.

Marmusa:  A non-denominational monastery (or at least, split between Roman and Orthodox Catholic) that tries to bring about peace between religions.  Lonely Planet doesn’t talk much about it, but it’s becoming the new big thing for budget travelers to do in Syria:  go to Marmusa, kick back and hike for a few days - room and board are free if you help with the chores. I didn’t have time to stay overnight, but I did want to see the chapel and feel out the vibe of the monastery.  I’d recommend staying a night or two if itinerary allows.  Taking a break from travel NEVER hurts!

Golan Heights:  The ruins of a town Israel bombed many years back.  Syria has preserved most of it as it was after the bombing, so you can see the gunshot marks in the hospital and ruined houses. Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propoganda which takes away from the experience.  It was interesting being able to see Israel from Syria!