Damascus: a City for Shopping by Nick Maes
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Not everyone enjoys shopping; especially blokes, and in particular not this one. That anyone can wring a scintilla of satisfaction from trawling around a store in the hope of making a purchase baffles me. But then I suffer from a rare congenital condition; I was born without a shopping gene. Or at least I thought that was so. It seems that I’ve undergone a Damascene type of conversion on the road to, er, Damascus.
Damascus is a city built for shopping, as Basil, my guide, was only too keen to point out. He picked me up from my hotel bang on 9.30 for a familiarisation tour – a necessity for newcomers in the Old City’s extraordinary twisting lanes. And by 9.37 he’d pinged me into a rambling shop apparently favoured by clerics and other assorted men of the cloth. I quickly escaped the fusillade of brocade, brass lamps, faux antiques and nacre covered prayer books. It was a close shave.
Basil soon got the message and spent the next two hours pointing out the major thoroughfares, sights and souqs and deftly explained how the seemingly splintered parts all interconnected. Job well done, it was time for me to do my own thing.
Getting Lost in the Old City
My cerebral Satnav is normally pretty directional and I confidently strode off towards the Umayyad Mosque. But something malfunctioned as I wove through the ancient lanes without so much of a glimpse of Islam’s finest building. And maybe that’s the knack to enjoying the Old City – get lost and see where you end up.
Sharia Medhat Pasha (Straight Street) is punctuated with monumental lumps of recently unearthed Roman masonry and lined with scores of shops flogging antiques, carpets and Levantine bric-a-brac. Here I felt a consumerist twinge, catalysed by the frankly gob-stopping smell of spicy coffee in the covered souq. The urge to buy a sack full of beans became overwhelming.
I strayed into another area specialising in covetable soft furnishings, every type of tassel, trim and trapping jostled for space alongside olive soap that looked good enough to eat. Bizarrely, I soon thought life would be incomplete if I didn’t buy glittery gold sandals on a nearby stall. I was obviously tired, vaguely hysterical, possibly hallucinating so headed off for supper.
Eating out in Damascus is as important as shopping – if you want a table at any of the flashier restaurants on a Thursday night (the start of the weekend), then book one, it’s essential. Likewise don’t even consider eating before 10 pm.
I’m a foodie by nature and missed having at least three pals with me to let rip with the menu at Nayranj restaurant. A lone diner couldn’t possibly wade through the meze without wasting most of it, so I settled for a lamb kebab and a delicious lentil dish smothered with crispy onion and pureed garlic instead. With wine it cost a bargain £15.
A Traditional Damascene House
Finding my hotel afterwards took several attempts, but I eventually got there. Al Mamlouka is a traditional Damascene house hidden in an alley near Bab Touma (Thomas’ Gate). It focuses inwards, towards a courtyard filled with orange trees, potted plants, a trickling marble fountain and an open-air living area furnished with low couches to sprawl on. If the outside was good, the rooms are even better.
High ceilings tower fifteen feet above marble floors, huge gold brocade curtains divide the bedroom from a sitting area and every conceivable surface is decorated in Middle Eastern bling. Camp, sexy and utterly gorgeous. Waking up from a perfect night’s sleep was difficult and staying in bed all day was too tempting.
Friday isn’t a day for the shops, unless you happen to be in the Christian quarter; but even there it’s subdued. Few folk open for business, except bakers doing a roaring trade with cakes and pastries, boys hawking cheap Chinese toys in Souq al-Hamidyya and a chap by the Umayyad Mosque (I found it) demonstrating the resistible art of vegetable carving. Friday is, however, a day for culture.
The World's First Recorded Alphabet
Check out the National Museum, if only for a tiny lump of clay inscribed with 30 cuneiform signs – the World’s first recorded alphabet. This wholly incongruous gobbet is somehow totally thrilling. For sheer ostentation, a splendidly homo-erotic Roman sarcophagus wins outright; it’s a buttocky and sensual riot, even though those depicted are trying to kill each other.
Along Souq al-Bzouriyya (the Seed Bazaar) I found Khan As’ad Pasha, an exquisite 18th-century caravanserai that’s currently home to a travelling exhibition of ceramics from the V&A. This is a big deal – no Western museum has lent such an important collection of objects to Syria before. It’s both a sign of the political thaw that’s taking place and a glowing reflection on Damascene culture generally.
I’d been told that the Damascus contemporary art scene was kicking, so went in search of it at Ninar art café and restaurant. Ninar certainly has a boho vibe; beatniky, manscaped poets (think sculpted facial hair) scribble into notebooks and table hop; it’s fun but hardly feels cutting edge. It wasn’t until the next day that I began to see what the fuss was about.
The Ayyam Gallery is in a newly built quarter twenty minutes by cab from the Old City. Housed in an unremarkable apartment building on a suburban street, it’s easy to miss. Don’t. The trip will be worthwhile. This slick, polished set up has been instrumental in promoting home-grown contemporary art in the Middle East and further afield (they have a new gallery in Dubai, are about to open a third in Beirut and show at art fairs around the world). When I visited they were showcasing Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian artists in a show called Shabab Uprising, it was excellent. Back in the Old City make a point of tracking down the well hidden Kozah Gallery just off Straight Street. Their roster of artists is equally exciting.
And here you’ll find yourself back in shopping nirvana again. My humbug attitude towards traipsing around stores had totally dissolved by the time I entered an antique shop called al-Nagafa near St Mary’s Church. Ask Hasan to show you their small house just around the corner. It’s a wonderland of fabulous junk, an Aladdin’s cave stuffed full of trinkets I never knew I needed and every one of which I wanted to bring home. I’ll never be the same again.