Middle East - Anthony Ham [396]
Central post office (Map; Sharia Said al-Jabri; 8am-7pm Sat-Thu, 8am-1pm Fri & holidays)
Telephone
City telephone office (Map; Sharia an-Nasr; 8am-7pm Sat-Thu, to 1pm Fri & holidays) A block east of the Hejaz train station. Card phones are on the street around the corner (buy cards from the telephone office or any street vendor). You can send faxes from inside the telephone office (bring your passport).
Tourist Information
Main tourist office (Map; 232 3953; www.syriatourism.org; Sharia 29 Mai; 9.30am-8pm Sat-Thu) Just up from Saahat Yousef al-Azmeh in the centre of town. Staff doesn’t always speak English.
Tourist office (Map; 221 0122;Handicrafts Lane; 9.30am-8pm Sat-Thu) A second, smaller office near the National Museum.
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BOOKS ABOUT DAMASCUS
Colin Thubron, Mirror to Damascus (1967). An engaging journey through the history of Damascus before the tourists arrived.
Rafik Schami, Damascus Nights (1997). This wonderful novel about a Damascus storyteller losing his voice takes you into the heart of the Old City.
Brigid Keenan, Hidden Damascus: Treasures of the Old City (2001). Lavishly illustrated study of old Damascus that you’ll want on your coffee table back home.
Marie Fadel and Rafik Schami, Damascus: Taste of a City (2002). A beautifully presented and wonderfully entertaining extended walk through the lanes and home kitchens of Old Damascus, complete with recipes.
Marius Kociejowski (ed), Syria Through Writers’ Eyes (2006). A collection of writing about Syria down through the centuries, with a good section on the capital.
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Visa Extensions
Central immigration office (Map; Sharia Filasteen; 8am-2pm Sat-Thu) One block west of Baramke Garage. Go to the 2nd floor, fill in three forms, present four photos (the Kodak Express just west of the Hejaz train station can do them in 10 minutes; S£200 for eight photos), pay S£50 and return 24 hours later to pick it up.
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SIGHTS
Old City
Most of Damascus’s sights are in the Old City, which is surrounded by what was initially a Roman wall. The wall itself has been flattened and rebuilt several times over the past 2000 years. Its best-preserved section is between Bab as-Salaama (Gate of Safety) and Bab Touma (Thomas’ Gate, named for a son-in-law of Emperor Heraclius).
Next to the citadel (closed to the public, but a visitor centre is planned) is the entrance to the main covered market, the Souq al-Hamidiyya, constructed in the late 19th century; a vault of corrugated-iron roofing blocks all but a few shafts of sunlight admitted through bullet holes left by the machine-gun fire of French planes during the nationalist rebellion of 1925.
The souq is Damascus’ busiest and it’s a place to stroll amid black-cowled Iranian pilgrims, Bedouin nomads just in from the desert and people from all walks of Syrian life. At the far end of this wide shop-lined pedestrian avenue is an arrangement of Corinthian columns supporting a decorated lintel – the remains of the western temple gate of the 3rd-century Roman Temple of Jupiter.
UMAYYAD MOSQUE
Welcome to the most beautiful mosque (Map; admission S£50; dawn until after sundown prayers, closed 12.30-2pm Fri for noon prayers) in Syria and one of the holiest in the world for Muslims. Converted from a Byzantine cathedral (which in turn had occupied the site of the Temple of Jupiter), Damascus’ crowning glory was built in AD 705. At the time, under Umayyad rule, Damascus had become the capital of the Islamic world and the caliph, Khaled ibn al-Walid, built what he called ‘a mosque the equal of which was never designed by anyone before me or anyone after me’.
The mosque’s outstanding feature is its golden mosaics, which adorn the facade of the prayer hall on the southern side of the courtyard, and a 37m stretch along the western arcade wall, which Damascenes believe represents the Barada Valley and the paradise that the Prophet Mohammed saw in Damascus. Traces remain elsewhere around the courtyard, leaving you to imagine the sublime aspect of the mosque in its heyday.
The expansive