Syria (Rough Guide Travel Guides) - Softcover

9781858287188: Syria (Rough Guide Travel Guides)
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The Rough Guide to Syria is the essential guide to this compact but culturally rich Middle Eastern country. Features include: Thorough accounts of all the monuments, from the ancient remains at Palmyra and Ugarit to stately mosques and hilltop crusader castles. Practical advice on shopping in the souks of Damascus and Aleppo and exploring the desert plains. Informed guidance on how to travel independently, and where to eat and sleep, in every price range. Detailed background on the country's history, culture, architecture and politics.

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About the Author:
Andrew Beattie specialises in and teaches Middle Eastern geopolitics. Tim Pepper has co-written books on Hungary and the Czech and Slovak Republics as well as travelling the world extensively.
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WHERE TO GO With most road, rail and air routes into Syria leading to Damascus, it's not surprising that virtually all visitors to the country spend at least a couple of days in the capital. Much of its rich historical legacy is smothered by almost defiantly ugly urban highways and half-built office blocks, but there's still plenty to see here, and once you get used to the noise, grime and heat of the place you can't fail to be overwhelmed by the fabulous Islamic monuments and the pungent, hectic souks of the Old City. Retreating to the hills around - as Damascenes do - is easy, and forty minutes' journey by road (or three hours by narrow-gauge train) brings you to the clean, cool air of Bloudane and Zabadani, mountain resorts in the Anti-Lebanon Range to the west of the city.

Beyond Damascus, Syria's landscape is crammed with a bewildering variety of archeological sites, reflecting the value that was placed on the region by a long list of warlike major powers, from Egyptians and Hittites, through Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans, to the medieval Crusaders. The Hauran, a tableland of wheat fields and desert scrub between the capital and the Jordanian border, is characterized by outcrops of black volcanic rock which the Romans used to build the trading city of Bosra. One of the big three archeological sites in Syria, it's an absorbing place, surprisingly intact and with families inhabiting many of the shops and bathhouses that still stand. The centrepiece is the fabulous theatre, its survival guaranteed by conversion to a defensive citadel by Arab occupiers. Many visit Bosra as a day-trip from the capital and forget the rest of the region, but if you've got time on your hands, the Byzantine church at Ezra (thought to be the burial place of St George) and the Roman sites near Sweida, east of Bosra, would justify a longer foray.

The main highway north from Damascus to Aleppo passes through two very different towns on the Orontes River: Homs is a busy provincial town that's safe to ignore if you can, but Hama is delightful, boasting one of the most attractive town centres in Syria, where you can eat at riverside restaurants and watch the turning norias, restored medieval water wheels now set in manicured gardens. Hama is also the obvious base from which to see nearby Apamea, an expansive and fascinating Roman trading settlement which was one of the most westerly caravan halts on the long trek from the Mediterranean coast to China. It's dramatically set on a high desert ridge above the fertile Orontes Valley, though its accessibility from Hama means that it's now one of the most touristed sites in the country.

The two main coastal settlements, Tartous and Latakia, are very different: the former has an attractive beach-side corniche and an intact medieval quarter, with plenty of evidence of its former occupation by the Crusaders, whereas the latter is a larger, busier, wealthier and more cosmopolitan place with some very attractive beaches close by. Both towns make good bases for day-trips into the mountains that run parallel to the sea, where tiny villages and forested ravines are overlooked by a wealth of lofty ancient sites. Pre-eminent among them is the Crac des Chevaliers, built by the Crusaders and considered by T.E. Lawrence to be the finest medieval castle in the world. Nearby are the attractive mountain resorts of Mashta al-Helu and Safita, and the ancient Roman temple of Hosn Suleiman, the latter located amid rocky, wild mountain scenery. Further north is Qalaat Salah al-Din, the spectacular defensive haunt of one of Islam's most famous commanders, and the extensive ruins of the ancient Bronze Age settlement of Ugarit, where one of the world's first alphabets was devised, both of which are easily reached from Latakia - as is the very different town of Qardaha, where former President Assad's body lies in a huge purpose-built mausoleum. North of Latakia, around Kassab, it's the scenery which appeals most: long, narrow forested valleys run down from mountain resorts to the sea, and there are attractive beaches at Ras al-Bassit, hemmed in right up against the Turkish border.

Aleppo, the second city, is on the whole less hectic and more manageable than Damascus, and proves more appealing to many visitors. It's similarly a storehouse of fine early Islamic remains, and its souks, vaunted as the largest area of covered markets in the Middle East, are no less vibrant, but it's easy to escape the bustle by making for the charming narrow lanes of the medieval Christian quarter. Surrounding Aleppo is the greatest concentration of historical sites in Syria: the so-called Dead Cities, Byzantine settlements abandoned to the desert during the seventh century, whose appeal today is their staggering degree of preservation. Most visitors to Syria see Qalaat Semaan, the church surrounding the pillar on which the mystic St Simeon sat for forty years, but it's well worth taking time to travel out to other Dead Cities, particularly those around Maarat al-Numan, where some of the best-preserved remains lie in almost complete isolation.

The least-visited part of the country, the northeast, consists of flat semi-arid plains cut through by the green swathe of farmland along the banks of the Euphrates River, which has dominated the history and geography of this region. Of the two main riverside towns, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zur, the latter is much the more appealing, with a laid-back feel, and is the best spot to appreciate the languid river. The major historical sites around here are the remote, largely Roman settlements of Resafe and Halebiye, and the more ancient strongholds of Mari and Dura Europos, set on bleak ridges above the Euphrates southeast of Deir. Qamishli, the main town in the far northeast, has little to offer travellers except an unusual back-door entry route into Turkey, though it is the jumping-off point for the Arab bridge at Ain Diwar on the River Tigris, set amid the most stunning scenery in the whole country.

Last but not least, there's no denying that Palmyra is probably Syria's most exciting destination. Although the ancient site has been somewhat blighted by tourism in recent years, the extraordinary spectacles of the 2000-year-old columns and tower-tombs, and of the sun setting over the seventeenth-century Arab castle,will undoubtedly form some of your most vivid memories of Syria. Indeed, only four hours by road from Damascus, it's a good place to see last of all, spending two or three days ambling through the ruins before heading for home; and when travelling to and from Palmyra, you can't fail to be impressed by the desert itself - so expansive, empty and harsh as to be almost shocking. WHEN TO GO As Syria receives comparatively few visitors, there is no particular tourist high season, so the weather is the main determinant of when is best to visit the country. With hot, dry summers and wet, cold winters, spring and autumn are the ideal times to visit; changeable weather characterizes both these seasons, when the days are predominantly warm and sunny (seldom hot), interspersed with grey skies bringing rain or showers. Summers in Syria can get unbearably hot, particularly in the eastern desert, around Palmyra and Deir ez-Zur; in mid-afternoon in July and August it regularly reaches 40`C here and can climb even higher. However, there's often a stiff breeze to moderate the temperature quite considerably, and the heat is dry rather than humid, which makes things more bearable. Damascus and Aleppo are slightly cooler during these months, but with pollution and the lack of desert breezes, things can get wearying and unpleasant there, too. Summers on the coast and in the mountains are rather different: it's cool and cloudy in the hills, hot and humid on the coast, and it occasionally rains in these areas - usually in the form of short, violent thunderstorms in the early evening or late afternoon. But the majority of the country experiences cloudless skies from June to September, and by early autumn is parched dry.Winters, on the other hand, can be cold, wet and miserable. From December to February temperatures in Damascus and Aleppo rise little above 10`C, with rain, overcast skies and chilly evenings and nights the norm; very occasionally these cities grind to a halt after heavy snow. In the mountains you can be certain of snow and freezing temperatures during January and February, while biting winds in the east of the country regularly bring night-time temperatures down below zero;winds blowing down from the high mountains of eastern Turkey can even bring a dusty smattering of snow to Palmyra. Tartous and Latakia on the coast can also be dispiritingly cold and wet in midwinter, battered frequently by Mediterranean gales which can occur well into April.

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  • PublisherRough Guides
  • Publication date2001
  • ISBN 10 1858287189
  • ISBN 13 9781858287188
  • BindingPaperback
  • Edition number2
  • Number of pages368
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