Near the end of my trip, I made two other sojourns to places outside of central/western Syria where I had spent all of my time. The first was to Palmyra (or Tadmor in Arabic), an ancient oasis city in the desert that once was an important caravan stop. The Roman ruins here give a glimpse into how prosperous it once was:

The Temple of Bel:

The other trip was to Beirut–which is of course not in Syria but fairly close to Damascus and accessible by bus or shared taxi. After making it through a relatively complicated border process into Lebanon, I got to spend a day in this amazing but also war-scarred city:

The American University of Beirut:

And an additional bonus: the museum in Beirut actually did allow photos!

The Ahiram Sarcophagus:

The Batnoam Inscription:

All in all, it was quite a fruitful and exciting trip!

In the course of traveling through all of the sites mentioned in the previous post, I spent a few nights in the coastal cities of Latakia (Arabic “al-Ladqiyye”) and Tartous.

Latakia is on the northern coast of Syria, and is an important and bustling port city:

I naively thought that I’d be able to catch some good views of the water, but after arriving there I realized that the nice beaches are north of the city (near the more luxury hotels), and that the city’s coastline is mostly taken up by port operations:

On the other hand, Tartous, further south, has a much more wide-open coastline. It turned out to be quite a pleasant place to spend some time, especially since it’s famous for its delicious seafood:

I took a couple of side-trips during my time at Tartous. One was to Krak des Chevaliers, perhaps the most famous Crusader castle in all of Syria:

The other trip was to Arwad, an tiny island city about 3 km from the coast, known from written records in the 2nd millennium BC and still today containing remains of the ancient Phoenician walls. Nowadays it is also home to a market and various fish restaurants, as well as some old-fashioned boatmakers:

The boat ride to Arwad is just about 15-20 minutes long and was a pleasant highlight of the trip:

After several days in the major cities of Damascus and Aleppo, I had the chance to visit a number of sites near Aleppo and the Mediterranean coast with the help of a driver–doing this helped me to cover quite a bit of ground over the course of two days. It’s hard to do justice to these sites in just a few photos but here goes:

Church of St. Simeon–this is an amazingly well-preserved church from the 5th century AD, built in honor of Simeon Stylites, famous for (among other things) living on top of a pillar for decades. The church is built around the site of the pillar itself:

Ain Dara–the site of an Iron Age temple in the Neo-Hittite style and often cited as having parallels to the biblical description of Solomon’s temple:

Tell Mardikh (Ebla)–a huge 60 hectare site south of Aleppo, and location of a city that flourished in the 3rd millennium BC:

Ras Shamra (Ugarit)–site of an important Late Bronze Age city on the Mediterranean coast near modern Latakia, and of course the place of the discovery of the famous Ugaritic tablets. Considering my area of study, this was a site I could not miss (almost the single reason I came to Syria):

Ras Ibn Hani–a site neighboring Ras Shamra, where Ugaritic tablets were also discovered:

Qala’at Marqab–a stunning medieval castle made of black basalt, built in 1062 by the Muslims but subsequently reinforced and used by the Crusaders, before then falling to the Mamluk Sultan Qalawun:

As a final tidbit: in the course of all this walking and sightseeing, my old sneakers just totally fell apart on me (notice the detached sole), somewhere on the sandy slopes of Ebla. I had no choice but to buy a shiny new pair of shoes at Latakia:

My wanderings in Aleppo’s new city took me all over the place, from more central places near my hotel, such as the famous Baron Hotel and shops just surrounding the Old City,

to a cemetery south of Bab al-Maqam (this is waaay south by normal tourist standards),

to trendier areas such as al-Jedeidah and al-Aziziah:

In fact, I happened to be in al-Aziziah, perhaps the trendiest part of Aleppo, while the Germany-Argentina World Cup quarterfinal game was on. When I realized this, I tried to go watch it at one of the cafes, only to find almost all of them completely packed:

But I ended up finding one place, about two blocks away, that had a single table open (incidentally, the staff here were absolutely fantastic):

The game, of course, ended up being a 4-0 blowout by Germany, and for some reason, everybody had been cheering for them… or perhaps they just wanted to back the winner.

A couple of other things to mention: I did visit the museum again, and as always, no pictures were allowed inside, but the portico of the Aleppo museum is quite interesting, meant to be a restoration of the entrance to the original Tell Halaf museum in Berlin (destroyed in WWII):

Also, while I was in Aleppo, I got to hang out with my friend Kate, an archaeologist who was in the country at the end of a dig, and she was kind enough to show me around and give me tons of valuable tips on Syria travel in general (this is a picture of me, her, and her friend Eric, a fellow excavator):

After a couple of days in Damascus, I took a bus (5 hours) to Aleppo, the main city in northern Syria and a contender alongside Damascus for the distinction of being the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Like Damascus, Aleppo consists of an “old city” with a citadel and souq, surrounded by the new city which itself is divided into many neighborhoods. Rather than going strictly chronologically with my visit, I thought I would start by telling you just about the sights in the old city, some of which I returned to on different occasions.

The most impressive part of Aleppo’s Old City is the citadel, a fortified mini-city on a massive mound surrounded by a moat. For some reason, many guidebooks claim that it is a natural hill, but my archaeologist friends emphasize to me that it is a “tell”–that is, a mound built up from centuries of occupation. These pictures of the citadel entrance and the fortification wall perhaps give you an impression of its scale:

The inside of the citadel is quite impressive as well, containing remains of a number of buildings, including the Ayyubid and Hammam palaces, and the Great Mosque:

And the view of the city from the citadel is simply spectacular:

West of the citadel is the Great Mosque (not to be confused with the [ancient] Great Mosque of the citadel) which I did not enter this time but did get a good view of from outside:

The Old City also contains a souq, which has a bit of a different look from the Damascus souq, but is just as lively:

South of the citadel are a number of other historic buildings such as: the Hammam (“bath”) Yalbugha, which apparently had been restored for modern use but it wasn’t open when I was there,

the Altunbugha Mosque,

the Mosque al-Sakakini,

the Mosque al-Tawashi (which was undergoing renovations),

and the Bab (“gate”) al-Maqam on the southern end of the old city:

These dudes near the gate insisted I take their picture, which I did, but when I subsequently tried to get a picture with them, they just ignored me (having immediately resumed their previous line of conversation):

My adventures in Damascus continued with more must-see sights: first of all, the National Museum of Damascus, which contains an important collection of antiquities:

Unfortunately, pictures weren’t allowed inside (as is the case in many museums in syria), but there were plenty of replica-monuments in the outer courtyard:

Later that day I went back to the Old City to visit some more sights, including the Khan Assaad Pasha (a “khan” is a traveler’s inn). There is a fountain in the middle, with the travelers’ rooms were upstairs off the balcony pathway surrounding the courtyard:

There was also the Azem Palace, a lavish 18th century residence built for one of the governors of Damascus, again consisting of a courtyard with buildings all around:

Here is one of the few pictures with me in it during my first couple of days here… I guess I do stick out like a sore thumb, right?

After my sojourn into the Old City, I somehow found time to trek up to the north of Damascus, to an area called Salihiyya, containing a market (Souq al-Joumma, which means either “Friday Market” or “Market of Gathering”–not sure which) and various mosques:

In the midst of another long day of walking in the heat (good thing it wasn’t humid, but still it was HOT), I was glad to find refreshment at key moments, whether it was a glass of mulberry juice on ice (50 Syrian Pounds = USD $1, which is actually quite expensive because it was right next to the Umayyad Mosque), or a small cup of lemon slush (5 SP = 10 cents):

And of course, bottled water is essential–I went through this 1.5 L bottle in about 5 minutes when taking a break at the hotel in the afternoon:

This trip was a long time in coming. Last year a research trip I had planned didn’t materialize, so this summer, for various reasons of timing (including baby on the way), I decided to make a trip purely to get a view of the country and to visit many of the sites I have studied so much about.

After traveling for close to 20 hours (ride to the airport, 12 hour flight to Amman, 4 hour layover, another 1 hour flight, then customs/luggage plus taxi ride) I was glad to arrive at my hotel in Damascus. It was definitely budget (what you see here is basically the entire room), but it was clean, had a private bath and air conditioning–all one really needs:

The next day I wanted to get as much done as possible, so I made an early start (took a walk at 7am, before the city was awake). The picture you see here is from a pedestrian sky bridge overlooking one of the major streets (al-Thawra). The two tower-like structures you see on the left by the trees are parts of the citadel on the corner of the Old City. As I mentioned, the street looks empty because it’s ~7am, but trust me, by 9 or 10am the street is packed with cars:

Much of this first day was spent at the “Souq” (Arabic for market) in the Old City. It really is a collection of many markets, or a series of market-streets in a tightly packed space, however you want to think about it. The Old City itself is the central part of Damascus, set off from the “new” city by the ancient city walls (or what remain of the medieval parts). Anyways, here is the famous view of the entrance to the Souq al-Hamidiyya, packed with people as always:

Since this part of the souq is covered, it’s considerably cooler in the summer, another reason why there are so many people. The holes in the roof are bullet holes (according to Lonely Planet).

Lots of stuff is sold in the souqs: pretty much everything under the sun. Here are pictures of a few random shops, including an ice-cream shop,

a store selling various metal crafts, including pots, chess sets and damascene knives,

and one (of many) selling spices and soaps:

Near the center of the Old City, right in the midst of the souqs, is the Umayyad Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam. It is so called because it was built when the Umayyads (7th-8th century AD), with their seat in Damascus, ruled the Islamic world:

The courtyard is stunning and filled with splendid architectural features:

By the way, all are required to remove their footwear before crossing the threshold to the mosque. I don’t know if you can tell from the following photo, but that little black mark on my right sock was the result of a kid stepping on me, rather hard, with his dirty sandals (he was just in front of me at the threshold when he realized he had not taken his sandals off and so stepped backwards):

Just one more highlight for this first entry (which is already quite long!)–the famous “Straight Street,” also in the Old City, which is mentioned in the book of Acts (chapter 9) as the place where Paul, after his Damascus road experience, met the disciple Ananias:

There is also a Chapel of Ananias, an underground tenement where, according to tradition, he resided:

In a continuing effort to broaden everyone’s cultural horizons, here is a video of a guy beatboxing the original super mario bros. theme. Enjoy.

as our time in chicago is (too quickly!) coming to an end, i find it delightful to still come across things i haven’t seen before. i had the opportunity to spend the day in downtown while waiting for our car to be serviced.

well okay, first one is not a particularly delightful sight: even the art institute lion has jumped onto the stanley cup bandwagon by wearing a blackhawks helmet. sigh.

the original facade to the chicago stock exchange building (it was on the other side of my much visited chicago art institute).

on my way to Navy Pier, finally walked down to the harbor where all the boats are out ready for summer.

and finally went to the (free) stained glass museum at Navy Pier. here are a few examples by Tiffany… really quite beautiful and painting-like.

tulips are out in force on michigan avenue.

in front of the water tower.