"SYRIA" a Syria Travel Page by Mcclovis

I always wanted to go to Syria and even the mention of the name Damascus brought goosebumps on my skin. Maybe it is the blood of my seafaring Phoenician ancestors which runs through me; or maybe it is the Semitic language engraved in our psyche or maybe it is just the wind blowing from the East... I cannot explain in simple terms my attraction to this country.

This year, 2006, my dream came true. I had been listening to endless travellers' tales and talked and chatted with Syrians and with other people living in Syria. It was not difficult to make friends from nearly every major city and I do not mean simple contacts but rather friends for life. I totally ignored the news about Middle East crisis. I was convinced that the real Syria is not the same country as the one mentioned so often in the mass media. The month and a half I spent in Syria confirmed my opinion a hundred times over.

The Syrian people are the most beautiful thing about Syria. They are the proof that people can live in peace even if they are different. The population is made up of different ethnic groups, religions, languages, traditions and social backgrounds.

There have been tragic clashes in the region's millenar history but I have also seen Muslim women clapping to the song of an Armenian; Jews living adjacent to Shiites; Catholics caring for Muslim children with disability and I watched a friendly local game of soccer where nearly all the players belonged to diverse religions. They are held together by a love of their country, of their history, of their culture, of peace, of a better future and of Fairouz (the Lebanese singer whose plaintive voice penetrates the heart.)

I think that if I were to live up to 100 and spend all these years travelling throughout Syria, I would not see half of the historical and cultural heritage of this country. It is simply crammed with traditions, monuments, ruins, artefacts and legends. It is also a Biblical city and an important place of Pauline tradition. Syria proves that multiculturalism is possible in one country. The Umayyad mosque itself started as a Roman pagan temple and then became a church and then the present mosque. For a considerable period of its existence, it served the Muslim and Christian communities simultaneously. Remnants of Christian iconoraphy can still be found on its walls.