Syria Vacations, Syria Vacation Reviews, Tourism Guide
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Syria Vacation Guide
If you listened to a certain major power’s State Department, you’ll be led to believe that Syria is home to terrorists camping out at the border, just waiting to get out, and a hotbed for religious zealots. Forget that, they couldn’t paint a much less accurate picture: Syria is a modern and increasingly liberal nation, and home to overwhelming sites and a sense of history you could almost reach out and grab.
Before we get to all that, though, there’s one thing you just have to know about first: Syria’s food. The local cuisine takes its cues from the French, Greeks and Turks, and blends their respective styles into a healthy, flavorsome combo that invariably thrills visitors. Shish Kebab, stuffed zucchini, falafel and stuffed grape leaves all squeeze onto the menus, and are usually served in sociable restaurants that sit patrons in the street.
When you’re full to the brim with healthy feasts, it’s time to explore. Start with the magnificent Qala’at Al-Hosn, an astonishing crusader castle, before climbing the hill above the Roman ruins of Palmyra and staring down at a site so vast you’d need days to explore every well-preserved nook and cranny.
Capital Damascus is known more for its exotic name than the city itself, but rarely disappoints, with mazes of ancient streets to be explored, and a skyline littered with minarets and generation after generation of crumbling architecture. It’s a stereotypical ‘romance of the Orient’ experience, one that you’ll need to break from and slurp on a strong coffee every so often to really take in. Bosra’s Roman theatre still lays on performances amid the well-maintained ruins, while trotting around on a flatulent camel is a bum bashing yet gleaming experience.
Syrian locals are exceptionally welcoming, and, as a break from the sites, there’s no better way to spend an afternoon than sipping tea at a picnic spot, bantering at the market, or following a street vendor around a village, kebab in hand. It’s all exceptionally old world, and majestically exciting to even the most well traveled of tourists.
Before we get to all that, though, there’s one thing you just have to know about first: Syria’s food. The local cuisine takes its cues from the French, Greeks and Turks, and blends their respective styles into a healthy, flavorsome combo that invariably thrills visitors. Shish Kebab, stuffed zucchini, falafel and stuffed grape leaves all squeeze onto the menus, and are usually served in sociable restaurants that sit patrons in the street.
When you’re full to the brim with healthy feasts, it’s time to explore. Start with the magnificent Qala’at Al-Hosn, an astonishing crusader castle, before climbing the hill above the Roman ruins of Palmyra and staring down at a site so vast you’d need days to explore every well-preserved nook and cranny.
Capital Damascus is known more for its exotic name than the city itself, but rarely disappoints, with mazes of ancient streets to be explored, and a skyline littered with minarets and generation after generation of crumbling architecture. It’s a stereotypical ‘romance of the Orient’ experience, one that you’ll need to break from and slurp on a strong coffee every so often to really take in. Bosra’s Roman theatre still lays on performances amid the well-maintained ruins, while trotting around on a flatulent camel is a bum bashing yet gleaming experience.
Syrian locals are exceptionally welcoming, and, as a break from the sites, there’s no better way to spend an afternoon than sipping tea at a picnic spot, bantering at the market, or following a street vendor around a village, kebab in hand. It’s all exceptionally old world, and majestically exciting to even the most well traveled of tourists.