Grand Homs

... down the room to approx. 10 degrees. The beds and the carpets had seen better times as well and when Heli stepped back into the room after the morning toilet he got it straight to the point: "Stepping inside this room is like stepping back into feudal Middle Ages."<br><br>Talking of feudal times HelMan and Herman steered towards Crac de Chevalier this day, a castle built during the Crusades and later used by the Arabs. There wasn't too much left of ...

... and the Oh So Cool Citadel, so tough that no one has ever conquered it. St Simeons the Stylites Basilica was built after Simeon passed away, clearly long periods of time spent on a pole were not practical for a long life ...

... armed with Hercules's club. The stone gates were no match for a demigod's weapon, and thus the castle finally fell to the Macedonian conqueror. Not much is known about what happened to it between this period and the return of the Byzantines in the 10th century AD. Emperor John I Tzimisces gained control of the place from the Aleppan Hamdanid dynasty, and built the first of its defensive structures. It then fell in the hands of the Crusaders at ...

Quickly grabbed breakfast at the juice stand and left Hotel al-Salam. al-Salam was cheap and ******, but the management was really friendly. Took a bus from the main station to Homs. Took 2 hours as opposed to the 3 that Lonely Planet had suggested. The bus system in Syria is exactly the same as that in Turkey. The buses and the stations are of the same high quality. I paid 150 Syrian pounds for the ride. Because ...

... en bonne et due forme, encadré par des hauts murs et tout (comme à Damas). Mais honnêtement, de même que la vieille ville que je visitai ce mardi matin de bonne heure n'est pas grandiose, Homs vaut surtout pour son bazar populaire, le côté assez égyptien de ses habitants allant à droite à gauche le jour comme la nuit en ...

While staying in Aleppo we went on a day trip to see the Crusader castles of Krak des Chevaliers, Marqab and Saladin's Castles. Krak des Chevaliers is impressive in that it is remarkably preserved, while the setting of Marqab, set overlooking the Mediterranean, and Saladin's Castle, within a wonderful smelling pine forest, add greatly to their appeal. Krak was never able to be taken by force, but was ...

On a fair winter morning On a bus bound for Homs I wrote a new blog entry Though I probably should sleep But I've also been staring Out the window at Damascus The city's drab and boring But the hills are kind of neat. I'll say that I spent this morning Mostly running little errands Knowing where to buy baklava And where ...

... what was to come. Just to drag on the anticipation of seeing the Krak, we next visited the Monastery of St George, from where you could see the outline of the Krak in the mountains above. The monastery was very.... monasteristic I suppose, you know the usual sort of stuff. OK so finally we got to the Krak. And all I can say is wow, it certainly met my expectations. The complex was immense and pretty much contained everything you could want a castle to contain. The best ...

... The bus ride to Hama was quite staright forward, a direst bus was leaving within 5 minutes of us arriving there. We arrived in Hama after dark and thought we would try walking to our hotel some 2 kilometres away. On the way we passed a pet store that was selling eagles, now that would make a very cool pet. We must have looked very lost as a very friendly public bus driver pulled over and gave us a lift for free straight to our hotel, more fantastic Syrian ...

... startling about our visit is that there was an element of danger in touring the structure. Most other monuments I have visited had guard rails or areas you could not explore. This is totally open and taking the walk on the upper ramparts is quite exhalarating! We explored storage rooms with just our camera lights on for a guide. It was a very hot day and being inside the castle was a nice respite from the direct sun although we were at a high altitude and ...