Some tips for visiting Damascus surroundings

Maaloula, Mar Musa and Quneitra are short day trips from Damascus. Someone told me that you could combine the first two, but I think it becomes a tour de force. In addition, having time, I highly recommend sleeping at least one night in Mar Musa monastery.

Mar Musa can be reached from the capital, taking a bus to Nebek. Then you must arrange yourself: usually the same driver intends to drop you to the monastery asking about 4 / 5 €. Or take a taxi, which will not cost you much more.

Even for Maaoloula there is a bus, direct, but from a different station.

For visiting Quneitra you need a permission to be requested to the Ministry of Interior, which is not far from the USA embassy. Permission is given without any difficulty, for free: on arrival you find a booth in which you present your request, and wait outside. Then a man comes, in my case he spoke a decent English, and he asks you if you are a tourist or something else, you give him the passport and the date of the visit, whether the same day or the next one.
If you arrive on site at opening time, around nine, you can have your permission in a quarter of an hour. Later, the waiting time increases. The same man give you the permit and the passport, and tells you which is the right minibus station.
Along the way there are various check-points: your guide get on the minibus on one of these, you give him the permit and the passport, that will be returned at the end of the visit. The complete tour of the city requires about an hour, during which you are always accompanied by the guide-cop: remember that the military facilities can not be photographed, when in doubt it is best to ask. At the end I tipped him: although he hardly spoke English, he gave very clear explanations and answers to my questions.

A general advice: very few people speak English in Syria, but everyone will do his best to help you in reaching your destination.

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La città fantasma

febbraio 28th, 2011 | Posted by dokk in Siria - (2 Comments)

The ghost city

Quneitra is former syrian city. During the invasion of the Golan Heights it was taken over by Israel.

In 1974, following a UN resolution, the occupants were forced to leave. But, according to my syrian policeman-guide, they first evacuated the 30,000 living Arabs. Then they dismantled everything that could be resold: windows, electrical wiring, plumbing, tiles, etc, and took that to Israel. In the end they ran about the city with bulldozers demolishing the every building.

Quneitra

Quneitra

Quneitra is now a ghost town, where houses have imploded under the weight of the roof, banks are ruined, offices collapsed following the slaughter of the columns.

Quneitra

Quneitra

And the former hospital is riddled with holes of all sizes, having been used as a firing target. Only the Maronite church and the two mosques are still standing, but none of them seems to have been a place of worship, decadent and empty of everything, even the floors and stucco.

Quneitra

Quneitra

It certainly has been an unusual destination, away from common tourist routes. And with a bitter taste. But I highly recommend it.

Photos from wikipedia.

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