Shahba El Sham Aleppo

... dinner. Unfortunately the menu is in Arabic. Oh yea by the way, contrary to what Ismail said, I reckon one out of every 3 persons here speaks in varying degrees of English, so its not so bad as Turkey. Anyway back to the chicken shop, I thought I was ordering a large sized chicken burger meal, in the end though I was given this huge bucket of chicken and fries that look like it was made for a family of 4. So I kinda pigged out tonite. <br><br>25 Oct<br>In the morning, I asked ...

Destination 392<br><br>km193'632<br><br>At Lattakia it was very difficult to find a cheap accommodation as well as any of those beautiful beach streches described at guide books. There was just too much rubbish all around the place everywhere, a reason to leave very quickly...<br>Our short trip to Aleppo has lead ...

... we wander through<br>the narrow alleyways of the old chrisitan quarter where we are in<br>fact staying. We stumble upon the Armenian church which is subtly lit<br>and majestically towers over the small houses of the area. A wedding<br>is taking place this evening and so there is a carpet of white<br>flowers leading into the church &#8211; illuminated by candlelight!<br>The following morning we go back to the<br>church and are drawn in by and angel's voice. We sit through ...

... Middle Eastern, so very very cool. That feeling you get when you enter a completely different culture and discover that you love every bit of it was my first day in Syria. I wanted to put it in my already overweight rucksack and take it home so I could spread it out and roll around in it when I got home. Every street in Aleppo has hundreds of years of history behind it as they wind, converge and splay like a rabbit warren all over the city. Women dressed like the ...

... was quite relaxing and for a moment you forget that you are in Syria. That is until the mosque chants start up. Now to the details of our future travel plans.... In June we will be leaving via Istanbul for Heathrow and visiting friends and family in England for a couple of weeks. Then in late June we will be heading to the US via NYC and begin a ...

... it must of taken some effort to breach the walls of the place fair play to anybody who got up there! It was closed being a Tuesday so I couldn't go in and visit it which was a bit of a shame as the views are meant to be amazing. After grabbing a lunch for about 30pence of a schawma (kebab) which was dam good I headed over to the old Christian part of the city and bumped into a Syrian British guy who owned a lovely cake shop which had amazing cakes for about 25 pence, a ...

... to silverware, soap to scarffs, ... They are always trying to call your attention, but compared to Marocco and Egypt, their manners are quite soft and polite and it is easy to get away from them with a simple 'La, sukran' (No, thanks). If the souq is not enough, the city hosts as well a wonderful citadell and, in my opinion the best, with a christian / orthodox quartier with plenty of narrow alleys and medievals constructions (and the only place in town where ...

... This meant another 330 km and we knew we would arrive in the dark. Driving in the dark is something we would rather avoid but sometimes you don't have choice. One hour after nightfall, at around 6PM, we reached Raqqa where the road doubled in size to four lanes. This enabled us to get an average speed of almost 75 kph. Arriving in Aleppo we had a bit of the Cairo syndrome because we went into dense traffic without really knowing where we were. The city centre did not have any ...

... to sit on an 18 metre pillar all day to meditate. After his death in 459AD a huge Christian church was built around his pillar to commemorate him. Back in Aleppo our driver dropped us off at the entrance to the several hectares of covered souks. We said we would taxi back and we wouldn't need him until tomorrow. We felt like escaped school children! The atmospheric markets selling everything date back to the13th century and we had a wonderful time ...

... because there's no sign of any here. I'm limited to the ~$350USD in cash that I have until I get to Lebanon or Jordan. I really shouldn't have any problems with that much money as it really is dirt cheap here but I'm trying to ration a bit just in case. <br><br>I also explored the old Citadel and found it interesting. It's a World Heritage Site that is undergoing restoration / conservation at the moment. I got a nice student discount with my international student card - thanks Cynda!