Sands Palmyra

... by mistake. So it happened. Now we know it could happen faster than we think.<br><br>Anyways, Manuel picked up Helmut from his humid and cold nest just to get to the citadel (lookout) to watch a romantic sunrise. We arrived there 5 minutes late, checked the citadel and left back to the city where we had dinner and went to bed after two cups of tea.<br><br>Because Helmut was so upset about our host, he decided he would clog the drain in the ...

... to the 'tourist' centre. The doors were open but the lobby only had a counter in the middle with some toursity posters hanging on the walls. Other than that it looked empty and there wasnt anybody around. I looked into the corridors and the doors were all closed. So I wasnt exactly sure if the offices were open or not although it was already after 9am. <br><br>I then went to the musuem. They also sell tickets to two of the tombs there. When I asked for the tickets the ...

... dropped off by the bus at an unmarked spot on a road half a mile from town. 2 taxis had parked in front of the bus and refused to unblock the road until we agreed to give one of them our custom. A little worried what the increasingly aggrieved bus driver would do, we picked the (relatively) harmless looking cabbie, who took us to the hotel Abdullah had arranged for us and offered to pick us back up after we'd checked in to view the sunset from the citadel ...

... days called The Big Giant and The Little Giantess, sorta an allegory of German unification. Just check out the photos, it's absolutely amazing.<br><br>Historical milestones notwithstanding, it had particular resonance for me because the same French street theater company that organized it did a similar one in London 3 years ago called The Sultan's Elephant, the city's ...

... a good nights sleep. <br><br>It was Thursday night, the night to party, it is a small town but with everyone driving around in there huge American cars, honking there horns, celebrating a local wedding, it defiantly was not quiet. We were once again sleeping on the roof. We had planned on getting up at dawn, but as the night drew on and the noise from the street below only increasing our plan was to at least get some sleep before the sun rose. <br>Shona was lying awake ...

... Palmyra the desert stretches as far as the eye can see, but the springs around the city had kept it's inhabitants watered for thousands of years. The green of the palms was a welcome contrast to the burnt brown of the desert everywhere else.<br><br>As well as the ruins there are also a number of impressive funerary towers &#8211; I'm not sure if the ground in the "valley of tombs" was too hard, or if the locals liked to honour their ancestors with towers rather than ...

... with hikes throughout the area and visiting the Goreme Open Air Museum with the restored church frescos. Afterwards we made our way across the Taurus moutains and made a stop in Maresh for lunch and ice cream (very good ice cream.. actually world renowned. they use goat's milk and orchid roots to make the ice cream quite chewy (sounds strange but it doesn't melt on a hot day).. We then made our way to Urfa, the birthplace of Abraham. We saw the sacred ...

... rock is crystallised gypsum which allows water to collect at the lowest point without draining away. That point is the oasis. We are about 200km from Damascus and about the same from the major cities in Iraq, so this really is a large truck or camel stop. Even the roads are sand and not the normal paved Roman stone, to protect the camels feet. People have lived here since the 16th century BC, although the Roman influences took over in the first century AD ...

... to his car and it was the stupendous Skala Zastava. Legendary. The true highlight of this area is the Tomb of the Three Brothers. This underground burial chamber dates from 160-91 AD. It housed 50 or more sarcophagi but the real allure to this site is the beautiful frescos inside the tomb. The frescos are extraordinary unlike anything we have seen in art history or architecture. The portraits of the dead are painted in a ...

... some hotel and asked about getting a bus back to Damascus. They gave me some Bedouin tea (hot sugar laden water), and this guy drove me to the "bus stop." He told me it was 200 pounds. Then when he asked for more money I refused, fortunately I was in a good mood and my sense of humor was still intact. The driver and I battled for a good 15 minutes, he finally settled with 25, which is more than what it should have cost for a 2 min ...