501 Places

While hitchhiking around Europe in the 80s I met a German guy who pretended to be an Icelander, and even had the Iceland flag on his backpack. He was keen to  escape the negative perception he feared he would get as a German on the roads of France or Italy. (He also presumed that young [...]

Wandering among the impressive ruins of the great Roman cities of Palmyra or Jerash it is hard to imagine that this was the south-eastern extremity of the Roman empire. It’s a world away from the windswept isolation of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England, at the opposite end of Rome’s conquered lands. These cities are vast, [...]

You are approached by two backpackers. They tell you their story of misfortune. Robbed in the hostel, they now have no money and only their passports to get them home. What do you do? There are numerous stories of similar scams doing the rounds on the internet and via travellers’ gossip. After all, if you [...]

It might not be the most famous place to celebrate Easter, but the chances are that this most important date in the Christian calendar has been marked in Damascus for more years than in any other city. Syria has a large Christian minority and as we happened to be in Damascus last year over the [...]

‘How do you eat yours?’ So asks the successful ad campaign for Cadbury’s (or should that be Kraft’s?) Creme Eggs. The point being that faced with eating the same egg shaped piece of chocolate, people will adopt a disturbing diversity of approaches to the task. And surely the same observation applies to visiting a new [...]

Mention that you are travelling to most Muslim countries and you are likely to get a look of concern. “Is it safe?”;  “Why do you want to go there?”; “I don’t understand why they don’t like us”; all likely reactions if you live in the US or UK. And this is a shame, as people [...]

In any other place these impressive medieval structures would attract many visitors. In Hama, around 200 km north of Damascus, they go largely unnoticed, apart from the occasional tour group passing on its way between the Syrian capital and Aleppo. Yet these giant wheels, mainly dating from the 15th century, dot the city and the [...]

I have to admit to not knowing where Aleppo was a few years back. I had seen it on an airport departure board and wondered which part of the world those passengers would be flying to. So I was delighted when I started to research our trip to Syria to see that it is the [...]

Whenever we met another foreigner in Syria, they considered us crazy for hiring a car and driving ourselves around the country. Let me say from the outset: driving in Syria is heaps of fun! There is only one rule: there are no rules. As long as you follow this, and appreciate that every one is [...]

Damascus is the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city. As you enter the maze of streets that make up the Old City, you might not see evidence of thousands of years of dwelling, but a sense of history in the buildings that surround you is evident around every corner you turn. Unlike many old cities, the [...]