A little later we reached Aleppo to begin the Citadel/ Mosque tour.Alas, we could not park as it was national holiday weekend and all the prime parking spots had already been taken by eager Syrians, Japanese, Italians...you get the picture.Fortunately, Ahmad, the driver, bunged the local transport policeman a few 'quid' and, hey presto, we can now park for as long as we like.With more vehicles in Aleppo than in a Toyota storage depot, Maria and I have now concl...

Aleppo is a busy busy city of 6 million people and we reckon there are about 12 million cars, 90% of which are yellow taxis that you can't hale for love nor money as they're all busy...wow the air is so polluted!On our first night in this city that ranks up there with Bangkok and Lima for chaotic mayhem and pollution, we ventured out alone to find somewhere to eat, still desperate to experience the real Syrian dining experience...tent, carpets, cushions, shisha...

After driving for a couple of hours we reached the impressive ancient city of Apamea which is notable for its exceptionally long Roman street lined with classical columns. It was founded in 300 BC by SeleucusNicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals and the first king of the Seleucids in Syria. He named it after his Bactrian wife, Apame. The beautiful new Hellenistic city soon flourished, becoming one of the three main cities of the Seleucid Empire (with Ant...

An hour's drive this morning to the Saladin Castle then on to Apamea before stopping for 2 nights in Aleppo. We arrived at the castle to find that we had no guide organized and were content to go it alone until we saw the size of the place- impressive.We ummed and arred about paying for a guide ourselves and thought, what the hell.So a bit of haggling later off we set with what turned out to be a very knowledgeable and patient guide.What made t...

We had breakfast all to ourselves as it seems that everyone wanted to get to Krak Des Chevaliers early.As it was, when we arrived at 'Krak ' it was pretty quiet so maybe our reputation had preceded us so the groups all made a sharp exit before we got there.Anyway, we had a guide of sorts who gave us some of the history, inwhat sounded like Old English dialect (he left without a tip), and on the way out Maria asked a chap sat down by the entrance a couple of quest...