A

  Back to Hopwood home page

 

 

Jump Straight to Picture Gallery of Syrian tour    

 

 

 

SYRIA 

 

This page and the accompanying photo gallery is about our Saga Holidays archaeological tour of Syria in February 2011.

 

Syria has generally been on the list of preferred holidays only for relatively adventurous western tourists yet it has a great number of wonderful historical sites for the informed traveller to feast upon. In the past few years it started to open up to the extent that a conservative holiday company like Saga put accompanied tours to Syria into its brochure. We were lucky to be able to take part shortly before the shutters well and truly came down in March 2011.

 

As a counterpoint to the violence currently (Dec 2011) taking place in the country I have put this page and the photos on my site so that folk whose interest in Syria has been aroused by the news reports can see something of the wealth of history now inaccessible to visitors. We became aware of the difficulties facing the country from a fast growing population and from water resource issues in some parts but the apparently happy locals that we saw gave no indication of the turmoil that was to come in the months after we left. We didn’t start it – honest! We did however, notice that every house, mud brick hovel or tent had a satellite dish. These could tune to Al Jazeera and to the BBC Arabic channel – the result of which we were told was a big beneficial effect on the quality of State TV! (and no doubt helped spread the idea of the Arab Spring). As we were blissfully ignorant of any political issues we had a happy and incredibly interesting tour sampling the historic sites of Syria from prehistory to the present day. It also gave a glimpse into the development of the Abrahamic monotheistic religions.

 

For a full appreciation it is necessary to learn something of the timeline of civilisations and influences in the twelve thousand years of Syrian History and Prehistory. I do not propose to even try to begin to go into that here. For the benefit of the casual enquirer I will just list some of the places that were highlights of our tour.

 

Starting in Damascus, the oldest continually occupied city in the world, we visited the great Umayyad mosque which for a time in the 7th Century was serving both Islam and Christendom and which lies in the shadow of the ruins of the Roman temple of Jupiter which preceded it. (Which in turn was built on the site of the iron age temple of Hadad). We walked the “Street called Straight” that the bible says was visited by St Paul and we visited the nearby house of Ananias where he recovered from his blindness. We saw numerous khans or caravanserai and souks along with an Ottoman Palace and a fascinating museum.

 

In the south of Syria lies the magnificent sprawling Nabatean and Roman city of Bosra where a citadel built in Saladin’s time surrounds and preserved a complete Roman theatre. In Bosra you can also see the Basilica where, as a boy of 10 or 12, Muhammad met and was possibly influenced by the Christian Monk called Bahira. In the centre of Syria is the great Roman oasis city of Palmyra built, like Las Vegas, in the middle of a desert. Here a vast temple complex several hundred metres square with 18 metre high colonnades was developed by the Romans. It was built to favour the god Bel on the site of Greek and earlier structures. Nearby are tombs from the 2nd century both above and below ground with statues, carvings, paintings and heavy limestone doors on bronze pivots. The doors, whilst a little stiff and heavy, still function after nearly 2,000 years.

 

In the west, on the way to Homs we stopped at the massive crusader castle of Krak des Chevaliers which was taken from the Knights Hospitaller only through a deception.

 

A little north of Homs is Hama, recorded as once being subject to the rule of King Solomon. This city is famous for the water wheels which since ancient times have lifted water from the Orontes river into aqueducts for irrigation.

 

Another great ruined roman city called Apamea was next. Here the colonnaded main street is nearly two kilometres long.

 

Avoiding collision with the locally made pickup trucks which cheekily bear Mercedes radiator grills and Hyundai branded side panels and are known as “chariots of death”, we travelled on via a museum of beautiful mosaics to the northern city of Aleppo. This second city of Syria has a large citadel complex which was rebuilt by Saladin’s son Ghazi but has ruins dating back to the Hittites of 1,700BC. Aleppo too has colourful souks and a great mosque on a Christian site. The fascinating museum has as its entrance the 1,000 BC gateway from the Tel Halef desert settlement. We also visited a 14th C mental hospital which practiced music therapy and a 13th C public bath house which is still in use.

 

At St Simeon is the 5th C church celebrating the monk who lived on top of a pillar and which has views out over the hills of the dead cities.

 

Next was the 2,500 BC bronze age city of Ebla where a library of cuneiform tablets was found.

 

Then finally a trip through the fruit growing areas and up into the hills to visit to the town of Maaloula where the Aramaic language of Jesus still lives on and we heard it used in prayer. Here we explored hermit cells cut into the cliffs and a 5th C church that is still in use.

 

As you see we were very enthusiastic about this (Saga) tour, led by an extraordinarily good local guide and a English archaeologist. Their differing viewpoints added an extra dimension of interest.

 

To Picture Gallery of Syrian tour

 

 

Back to Hopwood home page