Aleppo is interesting. Today, being a Friday is a holiday as it is effectively the equivalent of our Sunday so it is the holy day. We woke up to a myriad of calls to prayer this morning at 5.30am which I will try to record tomorrow. We are staying is the old city, (the place we are in was built in the 1400's) and we have at least three mosques within a few hundred yards, all with their competing minarets bristling with speakers to ensure the faithful receive their call to prayer 5 times a day! Actually we are used to it now and generally sleep through it except this morning when they put is a special effort for about 45 minutes.

There have been very few tourists in Syria so far. In all our current hotel we are the only guests and we were the only ones at the last two places we stayed in Deir Ez-zor (on the Euphrates River) in the North East and in Palmyra. No wonder really, as it is cold and there has been quite a bit of rain, so it is definitely the off season.

We stayed just one night in Deir then drove North West, following the Euphrates for a full day, arriving in Aleppo late in the afternoon. We only had a vague idea of where out hotel was and no idea of what to expect. Aleppo is a city of circa 8million people, so it is vast. After a frustrating period getting hopelessly lost, Anni hailed a taxi and who I was then supposed to follow. That was an adventure and I very nearly lost Anni completely! The taxi lurched through impossibly narrow and winding alley ways and winding streets through the old city with me trying to tail gate to ensure no one pushed in between us. With everything from buses, trucks to donkeys and carts to block the way and get by, as well as the share multitude of people, it was something of an effort....but we got there after about 45 minutes. For the taxi driver I am sure it was nothing, for me it was like some sort of crazy Blues Brothers or perhaps James Bond car chase, with every child trying to jump in front of my car as we went! Still, we got close to our place and managed to walk the last few hundred yards and find the hotel, after the driver had left us.

We are the only guests in the Beit Salaheih which is strange in such a place. It is in the middle of a rabbit warren of lanes, none of which run straight, in the old city. From our room we can see the Citadel, which is dead impressive. We also see a lot of rubble. We are at least deep enough in the old city in walls several feet thick (stone) that we do not hear any road noise....only the calls to prayer, which is a little surreal.

Well, we are collecting a car tomorrow and we will start our drive south. We will go to Hamma, a few hours south of Aleppo for the next two nights and then leave the car in a town called Homs.

Merry Christmas!