Damascus Old City

I decided to give the Old City another chance and spent yesterday wandering around. I was wrong, it's actually pretty freakin' cool!

Palmyra

Palmyra is Syria's biggest tourist attraction and is most famous for its hundreds of columns.









Now when I say that Palmyra is Syria's biggest tourist attraction that is a bit misleading. If this site was in Europe it would cost at least 15 euro to get in and would be crawling with tourists. But since it's in Syria it's free to get in and there is no one else here.



Roman columns are cool but I've seen a lot of them already, the best thing about Palmyra is the Towers of Yemliko, these multilevel burial towers. There is one that you are officially able to visit nearby but I was able to climb into the one on the left and explore on my own. There was a floor panel missing and it made climbing to the very top too dangerous, but it also has an underground portion and I was able to go into that. It was pretty spooky because I forgot to bring a flashlight.



Inside the tomb tower and the missing floor.



There was another tomb tower that I was able to get to the top of. This was the view.

Damascus

To be honest Damascus is rather disappointing, even though it's Old City and souqs are supposed to be the best, I kinda feel like if you've seen one Middle Eastern souq you've seen them all really. The rest of the city looks nice from far away but when you get up close is nothing special.



Damascus does however have something really really special. The Umayyad Mosque, one of the most important mosques in the world.



The tomb of John the Baptist inside the Umayyad Mosque.



Umayyad Mosque mosaic detail. Ummm arab dates.



Speaking of food, the first thing I did in Damascus after checking into the Al-Haramain Hotel was to get a bowl of fuul. It was okay, but not worth the anticipation and my thinking that fuul would be the greatest thing I've ever tasted. Even with all the olive oil it tastes a bit acidic.



This however was pretty good. I don't know what it is called but it's sweet like rice pudding and like all the other food here is made with chick peas.



By far the best part about Damascus has been my day trips away from the city. The first was to Bosra to see the almost completely intact fortified Roman theater. This is a freestanding theater that was later turned into a massive fortress by the Arabs. Bosra was the Roman capital of Arabia and there are many other ruins of the city nearby all made with the same black volcanic basalt. Many have been reused by the locals, and it's pretty cool to be wandering among these ruins with people living in them.
My second day trip was to Palmyra.