Traveling to Damascus?
by erasa
I have been here for over a month, and i have observed some things from this city.
Well, for one thing i haven't seen the hospitality and wonderful friendly people that guide books and all the reviewers seem to boast about.
I have observed that they are theiving, arrogant,sexist racist bunch donkeys.
I would never travel to syria again---and not even to any other arab country.
I wouldn't reccomend this country to anyone.
Of course it is possible that your trip might be better than mine was, who knows. None!
new damascus
by call_me_rhia
New Damascus is not exactly a pretty sight, in terms of things to see: the hejaz train station, the national museum, Takiyya as-Suleimaniyya - and very little else. However I love it. It's centered around al-Merjeh square (the Martyr's square), is home to many hotels and... it's as sleezy as Syria can get. This means very little sleazy, but still I really adored the slight hint of very tame red light district - very interesting... Walking around and enjoying the sight of the many wannabe porno cinemas and films... the area is as safe as anywhere else in Damascus or Syria. And being frequently stopped and asked if i was Russian... which I translated into "prostitute" since someone told me that the "pro's" mainly come from there... and then beingoffered apologies for the inappropriate question. Fun!
Mosques
by xaver
What susrprised and amazed me about mosques in Damascus, was, above all the atmosphear, as I said, you see people really concentrated in their deep comunication the divinity, but you also see kids studying corano, or persons chatting, or someone resting, everything, is so not formal, who sits down who stands up, who simply walk around who kneels down, it is a place for the whole comunity something like a refuge from the corrupted outside world.
Khans
by iwys
If you walk through one of the old gateways leading off Souq al-Hamidyya or Straight Street, you will probably find yourself in a small courtyard of one of the old khans or caravanserai. Most of them were built by Ottoman merchants in the 18th century. These include Khan as-Zeit, Khan Suleiman Pasha and Khan Jakmak.
The Great Temple.
by TheWanderingCamel
Where the Omayyed Mosque stands is known to have been a temple site from earliest antiquity. Nothing remains to be seen now of the earliest pagan temples that stood there but there is still much to be seen of the Temple of Jupiter that occupied the site in Roman times.
Large as the mosque is, it's nowhere near the size of its Classical predecessor. That great temple was adapted by the Byzantines to be the Cathedral of St John the Baptist, and then, some years after the Islamic conquest, the church was razed and the Mosque built. Both these later buildings utillised the inner compound of the temple and you can still see the Roman mason's work in the lower courses of the Mosque walls. But this temple, with its outer courts, covered a larger area than any other Roman temple before or after. Apart from the fragments in the garden by Saladin's mausoleum, as you walk around this part of the old city, you can still find traces of it - a gateway built into the south wall of the mosque, the eastern gate of the mosque which was once part of the main entrance into the inner temple , columns built into walls, another gate half-buried in Bareddin al-Hassan Street
When you see these remnants, think of how far you have come away from the mosque and imagine the space that must have lain within those walls. It's awesome.
Sign in with Facebook
Muhamarra & coleslaw or cabbage salad
Bab Sharki
The Omayyad Mosque
view from viewing point
