Syria & Lebanon Round-up by Sarah Anderson
Featured Hotel in Damascus
Four Seasons Hotel Damascus
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Damascus has a valid claim to be the world's oldest inhabited city. Today it combines the unchanging feeling of the Middle East with its suqs, mosques and narrow streets with increasingly modern surroundings. For an international-type hotel stay at the upmarket and luxurious Cham Palace on Maysaloun Street (rooms $150-280) - which has branches throughout Syria. At the other end of the scale try the very central Sultan, al-Baroudi St - near Al-Hijaz Railway Station Square where the staff who speak English, French and German are helpful, and where the rooms cost a modest $20-$30. Hejaz Station contains the original; Orient Express steam train (now a cafeteria) on which Agatha Christie wrote her crime thriller Murder on the Orient Express on the way to meet her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan.
Most days there are long queues at the spotlessly clean Al Shamiatt, Abou Roumaneli (tel: 00 963 222 7270) where you get some of the best meze - a selection of small plates of salad-like hors-d'oeuvres including tabouleh, houmos, olives, fattoush, broad beans and yogourt - which make the ideal lunch.
For a set price you can eat as much as you like from the buffet at the cavernous Umayyad Palace Restaurant which is decorated with old tiles and textiles (tel: 00 963 222 0826). This is an ideal place to relax after visiting the impressive Umayyad Mosque. There is also a buffet in the evenings for $12 with singing and whirling dervishes.
The Ali Babar Yousef al-Azmeh Square is a very reasonably priced restaurant, but for a splurge on European food try the Arabesque restaurant, Madhar Pasha Souk (tel: 00 963 543 3999) which has a range of cocktails and is dignified and discreet.
It’s easy to get lost in the old city of Damascus - if you do don't panic - the Syrians are kind and helpful. A good tip is to always take the name of your hotel written in Arabic so that you can hop into a taxi (costing between 50 cents and a dollar). Behind many of the rather non-descript façades in the old town are real gems of buildings. After visiting Azem Palace look out for the newly renovated and striking Khan Assaad Pasha, built by the same 18th century Ottoman governor as the palace, which you enter through a tiny door in the spice suq. There is a ghastly rumour that it is to be turned into a tourist bazaar.
In the National Museum look out for the complete synagogue from Dura Europos and the reconstructed burial chamber from Palmyra. The drive from Damascus to Palmyra through the Syrian desert takes about 31/2 hours. There are almost no buildings or towns on the way (apart from the midway Baghdad Café) - this makes the arrival at Palmyra even more unexpected. Stay at the Zenobia Hotel and ask for a room (single $50 double $85) overlooking the ruins. Sitting with a drink overlooking the ruins on the hotel's terrace, which has Roman capitols for tables, is a mesmerising and romantic experience.
The drive to Aleppo takes about three hours - if you have time stop at Seidnaya, a convent and place of pilgrimage where both Christians and Muslims worship. If you are in Aleppo for several days try staying at both the Baron and Beit Wakil. The latter in Sissi Street, Jdaideh, is a converted 16th century palace which has a/c rooms round a courtyard with a fountain (single $79 double $110) and a dining room with a suspended dome and coloured arabesque glass windows. Just down the street is the Sissi House Restaurant (tel: 00 963 221 9411 fax: 00 963 221 5700 email: sissi@net.sy) which is also a converted palace with rooms.
Jdeideh is the Christian quarter of Aleppo and walking through the streets you find Greek, Armenian and Syrian catholic and orthodox churches and you can eat for $6 a head in the Mashrabiah restaurant (tel: 00 963 224 0249). Baron Hotel is one of the most famous hotels in the Middle East - its famous guests have included TE Lawrence, Agatha Christie, Kemal Ataturk and Charles Lindbergh. The rooms are being slowly modernised, but to date it has lost none of its authenticity. The bar still attracts both locals and travellers. A short taxi ride away is the neon-lit Wanes restaurant where many locals eat.
The suq in Aleppo is busy but there's always time for a cup of tea while discussing prices. The caravanserais just off the suq were often the residences of consuls. The 14th century lunatic asylum - now open to the public shows how enlightened the treatment of mental health was. Patients could all see fountains and greenery from their cells and music was thought to be therapeutic and instrumental in a quick recovery. Almost opposite is a soap factory where soap has been made in the same building by the same family for hundreds of years.
St Simeon's Monastery is an easy day trip from Aleppo - it is built round the pillar on which St Simon Stylites lived and on which he died in 459AD. He was an object of pilgrimage in his lifetime and the basilica was begun in 476AD. On a clear day the views over to Turkey are sensational. Lunch at the Seaman Castle Restaurant looking out over the Orontes plain where 6 of us ate for $12.
Include a few of the Dead Cities on this trip (there are over 100) - it is not known why they were abandoned so abruptly between the 8th and 10th centuries, but with a mass of wild flowers they have a romantic feel of the past.
Stay in Hama - famous for its noria (water wheels) to visit both the Roman city of Apamea with its 1.5km long colonnaded main street and for the crusader castle of Krak des Chevaliers - a solid, imposing, impenetrable building with the odd gentler architectural touch. This crusader fort was never taken except by subterfuge.
We crossed the border into Lebanon and drove down the coast through Tripoli and Byblos to Beirut. The city is full of rebuilding since the war - parts have a very affluent South-of-France feel with the corniche and restaurants on the Mediterranean, while in other parts the aftermath of the war is still apparent.
If you lunch at Casper & Gambini's on Riad el Solh (tel: 00 961 1 983 666) expect to pay London prices for sandwiches and salads. On the seafront try eating at Feluka - Samkeh & Nargileh's at the Sporting Club Swimming Centre, Raouche (tel: 00 961 1 742 483/4) where among the usual meze we had smoked fish in garlic.
The Albergo Hotel in the Ashrofieh district of Beirut has an excellent terrace - an ideal place for a drink. Anyone interested in having a large party between May and September can hire the gardens of the Sursock Palace (also in Ashrofieh - tel: 01 218 720). Artisans du Liban et d'Orient, Ain Mreisse (tel: 00 961 1 362610) sell expensive clothes, linen, shoes and jewellery in impeccable taste.
Outside Beirut visit Beiteddine - a palace with bathhouses and a museum of mosaics and after lunch on the terrace at the Mir Amin Palace Hotel.
Lebanon is a small country so nothing is very far. Baalbek is a must and the Palmyra Hotel with its charming owner has rooms for $30; it overlooks the ruins and has a guest book which boasts the signatures of Albert Einstein, Ella Fitzgerald, Claudio Arrau, George Bernard Shaw and Jeanne Moreau among others. The annex has the feel of a private house with a wood fire and stupendous views of the temples of Baalbek. Lebanon is suffering from a lack of tourists but that makes it even better for those who do visit.