Janie dresses for the occasion at the Great Mosque of Aleppo
A placeholder & links covering the whole journey can be found through the link here and below:
Later start today – saw Aleppo Museum (many antiquities).
We were not allowed to take pictures of and at the museum though.
Then went on to citadel – good state of repair with secret tunnels etc.
Then down into [Al-Madina] souks (fabulous), which is quite a sight in between the power cuts.
Also saw The Great [Umayyad] Mosque of Aleppo…
We tended to be mobbed (by which I mean warmly greeted) by local people almost everywhere we went in Syria (Damascus perhaps the exception). They seemed so pleased to see Western travellers and I proved especially popular with the middle-aged women, as apparently I bore more than a passing resemblance to one of their favourite soap opera stars!
…and then we shopped in the souks etc.
I want to write a few general words about our wonderful guide, Abdel. Janie and I have been fortunate to have had many extremely good guides with us for our travels. Abdel, who toured Syria with us for a week or so, was exceptional in every way. He knew his stuff as a guide, judged with great professionalism how much detail we wanted (and didn’t want) in various places and made our touring lots of fun as well as informative. He was a great one for breaking from the itinerary to show us an element of real Syrian life, e.g. to treat us to some snacks in a local place and/or introduce us to the many people he knew all around the country. Abdel also had a wicked sense of humour, teaching me some gutter Arabic and then warning me not to use it in edgy situations.
Abdel and his family lived in Aleppo; Janie and I have often wondered what became of them in the war there. He was a very intelligent fellow – let’s hope he and his family found a way to escape the worst excesses of the devastation there.
Back in 1997, when we were in his home town, he isnisted that we visit his home for dinner that evening.
Dinner at Abdel’s place – spartan surroundings but good food including mulukhiyah and boiled fowl.
All the photos from the Syrian leg of our journey can be found here or below:
