Aleppo to Damascus The road from Damascus to the Golan Heights was going through the desert with little to see and the group used this time to catch up on sleep. We consistently did not get enough hours of it going to bed late and getting up early. Everyone made themselves comfortable as much as
The Golan Heights, Syria, Sep 2024 Read More »
Aleppo Citadel The road from Aleppo to Damascus goes through the city of Hama and its famous water wheels, or Norias of Hama. They are the tallest water wheels in the world and about 500 years old. Back in the 12th century, they were used for irrigation. These days, there are 17 water wheels left
Aleppo to Damascus, Syria, Sep 2024 Read More »
Aleppo The city of Aleppo is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities. It is known that settlers already used Citadel Hill in the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE. Most of the constructions on it were done later, in the Middle Ages. The Citadel protected Aleppo from the Crusaders who besieged it unsuccessfully
Aleppo Citadel, Syria, Sep 2024 Read More »
On the coast The road from Latakia to Aleppo looked like from a catastrophe movie. For miles and miles, we rode through ruins. They were left and right, and as far as the eye could see. Hardly anything has been rebuilt since this area was bombed. The residents fled; many went to refugee camps. Others
Aleppo, Syria, Sep 2024 Read More »
Saladin Castle The Royal Palace Hotel was grand indeed, it was built to impress and to host a good number of guests. However, Syria is not a popular tourist destination and nobody else stayed at the hotel besides our group. The night was cool enough to keep the balcony door open and to let in
On the coast, Syria, Sep 2024 Read More »
Tartus We were going from Tartus to Latakia and the main attraction of the day was Saladin Castle. Nobody knows when the first castle was built but when Alexander the Great invaded Syria in 333 BC, the castle was already there. It went through a number of historic stages: Byzantine, Crusaders and Arab-Islamic, and a
Saladin Castle, Syria, Sep 2024 Read More »
Bulgaria – Lebanon Technically, all we needed to do at the border was to pay for our visas that had been already issued to us and to get our passports stamped. Harry and Fadi collected the money and passports and disappeared in the building. The group waited outside, and waited and nothing happened. We milled
Tartus, Syria, Sep 2024 Read More »
Visiting Syria was not on my short-term bucket list, far from it, but some things just happen as if they were sent to us from above. A post on the NomadMania website advertised a 12-day trip to Syria in September. Interested people should contact Harry. Having no idea who Harry was, I dropped him a
Bulgaria – Lebanon, Sep 2024 Read More »
I bought online a ticket to see the house where Nicolae Ceausescu lived with his family for a quarter of the century. There is no need to do that if you do not mind waiting 20-30 minutes. A guided tour takes 45 minutes, tours are available in Romanian and English. It says everywhere that “taking
Ceausescu Mansion, Bucharest, Romania, July 2024 Read More »
The trip to Bucharest was totally unplanned. I spend every summer in my favorite place, a small Bulgarian town of Byala, and use it as an opportunity to visit the Russian consulate in Varna to do some paperwork. This is a lot cheaper and less time consuming than to fly from Denver to Houston. Last
Bucharest, Romania, July 2024 Read More »
