Palmyra

We took the bus from Hama to Palmyra on a partially sunny day and arrived around noon. After a lunch in the sunshine we had a free afternoon and chose to explore the museum and ruins (circa 1st-3rd century CE). The museum has a lot of artifacts from the city as well as a small collection of mummies which was the highlight for most of us. We then ambled up "main street" and scrambled around the various temples and columns. The ruins are incredibly impressive - the main street is lined with mammoth columns and there is just so much to see. Much of it is restored but you can tell what was left standing and what has been reconstructed by the colour of the stones (the lighter ones were buried in the sand so they didn't discolour in the elements). They estimate that it will be another 10 years before they have everything put back together the way it originally was. Later on we had a great meal together and had a fairly early evening.

We began the next day with a guided tour of the ruins. We started in the valley of tombs which lies adjacent to the ancient city. There are three types of tombs: towers, underground and house style. The towers are just as they sound: four-storey towers lined with shelves for bodies (like an ancient morgue). Each shelf was sealed up and the richer clients had busts of themselves mounted at the end of their shelf tomb. The underground ones are similarly designed with shelves for the bodies but are on one level under the desert.

On the way to the valley of the tombs we stopped by an underground tomb that they are in the process of excavating. There are two sarcophagi at the museum that were removed from this tomb just two weeks ago. It's pretty neat to be so close to these new finds.

We started our tour of the city with the huge Temple of Bel at the end of Main Street. It is really impressive and has some wonderful carvings. The guide was very thorough in describing the various aspects of the temple including the altar, the entrance for animals and the gutters which collected the blood from the offerings. Some of the walls were reconstructed but the main entrance, some columns and walls were still standing as they had been built.

We continued down the street and were able to imagine the camel caravans from the silk road arriving to much fanfare in the city. The street was lined with shops and the cross-roads marked with taller pillars. The centre square has a fabulous set of columns which were once adorned with statues. The theatre is a really beautiful building which is very well restored. You can easily imagine the fights which were carried out there.

We spent another half hour or so wandering around and then went back to town for lunch. A few of us ate in a Bedouin tent-style restaurant and were treated to chocolate crepes for dessert on the house. It was very yummy.

In the late afternoon we climbed to a castle which sits on the hill above the ancient city. The castle was built by Saladin to defend against the crusaders, however they never arrived here and it was never used for this purpose. We climbed around the castle and sat out on the ramparts to watch the sunset over the ancient city. The sky had cleared and it was a beautiful sunset, however they have a communications tower on an adjacent hilltop which cut the sunset in half and totally ruined any photo opportunities. I can't imagine what they were thinking putting the tower there - they could have chosen any other hill in the barren surroundings but they chose the most intrusive spot they could find. It was, nonetheless, a beautiful evening and we enjoyed the views. We walked back down the hill and into the ruins on our way back to town. Some of them are really nicely lit up so we were able to take some night photos. Another lovely dinner then to bed early.

This morning we hopped a bus to Damascus. It was an uneventful drive - no epiphanies or conversions on the bus. We did however take photos of the roadsigns to prove we were on the road to Damascus. We came to several intersections with arrows to both Damascus and Baghdad which was interesting. Fortunately our driver took the right turn and we ended up in Damascus.

Since it's Friday, most things are closed today and Damascus is very quiet. Three of us opted to visit the Islamic Cultural centre which made for an an interesting afternoon. We chatted with some young women from various countries who had converted to Islam and decided to make their life in Syria. They were very candid and allowed us to ask pretty much anything of them that we wanted. It was very educational and it put a different spin on a few elements of the religion and culture for me.

I wandered around town for a while and saw St. Paul's church on the spot where he was lowered out of the building in a basket to escape the Jews. I will take a tour of the major sites of Damascus tomorrow morning and will spend the remainder of the day exploring the souqs and other sites in the old city. The following day we cross over into Jordan so will be sadly saying goodbye to Syria.