It's bound to happen. You travel thru a series of countries and places, and pick spots that are your 'favourite', then a few days later, a new destination crops up and that's yer new 'fave'. Palmyra is one such place, superseding Cappadocia, which superseded Ephesus and Gallipoli before it as my fave spots in the region.
Before we hit Palmyra tho, we spent a night in Hama, a quaint riverside town with gorgeous centuries-old (isn't everything here!) water-wheels
supplying the irrigation aqueducts. It's also the main jumping off point for Crac Des Chevallier, an 800 year old castle that we visited. It is pretty much still in mint condition, and as a strategic defence post for the various ruling empires over the ages, you can get a pretty good idea of how life was for the 4000 residents that lived within it's walls in its heyday.
On to Palmyra. Syria is the self-proclaimed 'cradle of civilisation', and given that its 2 biggest cities Aleppo and Damascus both claim the title of 'longest continuously inhabited city in the world' with evidence dating back some 3000 years BC, it is a claim with some validity. Palmyra, situated by a classic desert oasis of palm trees and water springs, these days is a tiny, dusty little town, smack bang in the middle of these two cities, deep in the Syrian desert, and a major stop/rest-point/trading station on the ancient caravan trail between the Asians and Persians, and the Roman empire.
Driving out from Hama, spotting traffic signs pointing the way to Baghdad on the highway (good photo op!!),
we passed several bedouin camps, and goat and camel herders, which really made us feel that we were right in there in desert life. Before you reach the modern town of Palmyra, you pass by ancient Roman ruins of the old city.
These ruins date from the 3rd and 4th century, and span several square kilometres. This city is replete with giant entrance arches leading into the main market street, wide enough for camel caravans loaded with goods and supplies, service lanes for shops and stores, an amphitheatre for Gladiator-style battles for public entertainment, private and public underground and above ground burial tombs, the outstanding Temple of Bel - to worship the God of Gods - and a citadel at the top of a hill, now used as a spectacular viewing point (fantastic desert sunsets!) .
It's amazing. I spent hours just snapping photos and wandering around these ruins, the weather perfect altho cold (who would have thought I would be wandering thru the Syrian desert with 4 layers of clothing on, including a heavy wool-lined parka!
We have been extraordinarily lucky with the weather on our trip. We are up to about Day 20 now, and while it may be a bit cloudy on occasions and rarely warm, it has only been raining while we've been on the bus, but almost as soon as we stop to visit another site, it stops, and the sun would come out. We only got caught out with a slight drizzle once in Turkey (at Troy), but that's it. It makes the trip just that little bit better not having to deal with rotten weather!
I have to say that the Syrian people are amazing. Most speak no more than about 5 phrases of English, and i have learnt about 5 phrases in Arabic, but the warmth and friendliness of these people transcend language barriers. Just walking down the street we are forever being stopped by locals asking us where we're from, and the first response is "Welcome to Syria".
Market shopping is a helluva lot easier to deal with than Turkey as well. There's very little of the pushiness and pressuring tactics here, and bargaining is done with a lot more genuine joviality, rather than the forced smiles and pretend laughter we dealt with, and makes the process of buying something a lot more pleasurable. And the free cups of tea are just as good as Turkey too!
On that note I'll finish this journal entry now. Talk soon.
Tony
peace love and happy faces
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