Rotana Suites Damascus

... br><br>"Please recite to me, in order, all the countries you have visited in your passport."<br><br>Dribble them out as they get written down in Arabic. <br><br>"Where is this?"<br><br>Amritsar, and the daft border stamp does not say it is an Indian frontier town.<br><br>Any problem? "A little one. We are talking to Damascus."<br><br>My taxi driver, having already shown remarkable patience, opens the trunk, points his finger at my bag and mimes "take out". <br><br>I take a little ...

... bands she would like! She<br>advises us to visit Safita and Amrit, which in the end we could not<br>see but I would recommend to anyone who has more time. The first is a<br>sleepy old roman/greek styled mountain village and the latter has<br>Phoenician tombs lined up by the coast! She leaves us with an insight<br>into her life with the song that she says represents her best at the<br>moment &#8211; the words involve a bit of &#8220;I hate my job, I hate my<br>life&#8221 ...

... Eventually though, times change and the church was bought and yadda yadda and now it is one grand mosque...literally...it's also known as the Grand Mosque of Damascus. The one thing I didn't like was that DeVan and I went to great lengths to dress appropriately, pants, long sleeves, nice clothes, scarves for our hair, etc...and they still made us wear these horrible (and probably dirty) Harry Potter secret society robes with hoods. Foreign dudes were fine (as long ...

... the reason for the difference is that Damascus is NOT full of tourists, so it was a great experience for me. Will come back for sure. Did a lot of shopping, shoes, a kaftan, a silver ring, many many spices and so on. <br><br>Visit the botanical garden of Damascus, it is very small, but beautiful. The Omayad-mosque is amazing. <br><br>Going from Beirut to Damascus and back in one day is no problem. But you need to get a visa before this trip.

Mer gjestmild gjeng enn syrierne skal du lete lenge etter. Det er ikke alt for lett å finne frem i Syria, men med det syriske folkeslaget som hjelpere, gikk alt som en lek fra ankomst til slutt. Det er nemlig slik, at kulturen her landet krever at man skal hjelpe en trengende til det ikke lenger er trengende, noe som for vår del førte til spandering og geleiding til en rekke destinasjoner rundt i dette fengslende landet.<br><br>Vi tilbrakte hovedsaklig tiden vår i Damaskus ...

Visiting Damascus &#8211; Syria's capital city &#8211; helped put things into perspective after first traveling through Syria&#8217;s 'second city&#8217;, Aleppo, and smaller towns. Damascus is widely considered the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, and it wears its age incredibly well. I had a love-hate relationship with Damascus, which was partially related to the accommodation scene there, which is very limited due to the shocking number of tourists ...

... amid all the hype as the sun was setting, making the huge stones glow orange. With it sitting proudly high on a rocky outcrop overlooking miles of green rolling hills and the setting sun, we could hardly have seen it in a better light. The only hitch was that we arrived at 6.45, with the gates closing at 7 - so myself and Tak literally sprinted around the sight, posing for numerous self take timer photos, and sitting on a wall adjacent to the site at 7 to watch the sun ...

... could take a picture and he took the bread down and then stopped and put it back up for us to take a picture. He took us down along another narrow street and showed us a restaurant set in the courtyard of the building. It is one of the very old buildings in the area. The woodwork is carved around the doors and the ceiling. The buildings are made of limestone white, cream and black balsalt stones. Quite impressive. Ornate tiles and mosaics around the doors. Went to the ...

... he was driving in the Indy 500. There wasn't even a holy **** bar above the window to hang onto, I was completely defenceless. As there was no chance in hell that I was ever going to fall asleep on this journey with the driver so recklessly weaving in and out of traffic and intermittently slamming on his brakes, I occupied my time by counting how many near misses we had with other cars. By the time we reached Damascus the tally was up to 69, with 24 of ...

... and not at, the town. One of the most fascinating things about Maalula is not what you see, but what you here. This is the last place on earth where Aramaic is still spoken in everyday language. Aramaic was the language of Jesus. Today there are about 5000 local speakers. Remember Mel Gibson's epic, The Passion of Christ? The entire movie was in Aramaic, but apparently the native speakers in Maalula could barely understand the ...