Tuesday, April 05, 2016

D is for Damascus

I had a busy day and didn’t get to visit many blogs and tonight, I spent watching Carolina play for the NCAA championship—an incredible game and I now get to feel like Georgetown did back in 1982 when Michael Jordan beat them with a last second shot…  I’ll try to catch up tomorrow.

There are a lot of nice places to visit that begins with a D:  Denver, Dallas (well, I’m not sure anything in Texas is nice), Durango, Denmark, but I’ve been to all of those (including both the Denmark in South Carolina and the one in Northern Europe).  Since I am looking at new territory for my bucket list of places to go, there is one place that I’d really like to visit that begins with a D, but probably not this year.  That’s Damascus.   Yep, the city in Syria which is embroiled in chaos.  Damascus could be another chapter for P. J. O’Rourke’s classic travelogue, Holidays in Hell.  So, why would I want to visit?  First of all, it may well be the oldest inhabited city in the world.  It is a city that has held a front-row seat for many of the great events of the world as well as having been invaded by all kinds of people: Hittites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Muslims, Mongols, and Turks.  Famous people have traveled to the city.  The Apostle Paul found cure in the city after having been blinded on this way there.  Mark Twain later visited it on his Holy Lands trip in 1867.  He wasn’t impressed and said if he was to return, he’d look at the city from the distant mountains and then leave.  There was no reason to enter the walls of the crumbling city during the waning years of Ottoman Empire.  From a distance, it was attractive, but at close quarters, the quarters were too close.  The streets were crooked, so much so that Twain attributed it to divine intervention that the Apostle Paul was able to find a street named Straight.


Twain pointed out a legend that Damascus was the site of the Garden of Eden. “It may be so,” he wrote in Innocents Abroad, “but it is not now.”
 
So what would I do in Damascus?  In the good old days, it would be nice to take a train from Istanbul to Aleppo and then on to Damascus, but the second leg of that trip isn’t currently possible.  Actually, my main thing to accomplish is to avoid bringing home any shrapnel souvenirs lodged my buttocks.   I enjoy Middle Eastern food, but I doubt there would be a safe place to eat falafel, hummus, or a kabob. Maybe I’d just catch a Manfred Mann’s concert and then head on over to Jordan to visit Petra. 



Question, why would Sage seek out a Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in Damascus?  Answer will be given tomorrow (I’m borrowing a page from cleemckenzie’s blog).  

24 comments:

  1. I was lucky enough to visit in 2009 and am devastated at the wanton destruction of such a wonderful country. Aleppo was my favourite city but the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus was really wonderful. I do hope you get to go there one day in peace. Wilbur from Wilbur's Travels.

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    1. Glad you were able to get there before the country broke apart in war.

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  2. How I would love to visit that part of the world, too - a great "D" place to write about.

    My niece, her husband, and great niece live in Ankara, Turkey right now. He works for the Turkish government - I try not to worry too much about its relatively close proximity to Syria. My sister and brother in law are going to visit in June. Oy vey!

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    1. You should go, too. However, even Turkey has been struggling lately.

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  3. Your musical reference is interesting, as I believe Petra is the name of a band as well.

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  4. There are so many archaeological and historical sites in Syria that it would have been wonderful to visit Damascus before. Nowadays, as you point out, it would be a holiday from hell.

    Denmark has a special place in my heart as we got married there :-)

    Cheers - Ellen | http://thecynicalsailor.blogspot.com/2016/04/d-is-for-ditch-bag-nancy-drew.html

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  5. I had a great uncle who toured the middle east and I always thought that would be a trip of a lifetime. However, all the turmoil in the region this last decade has tempered my desires to visit the region in the foreseeable future anyway. I have enough stuff to see not in regions of conflict to keep me busy but if it ever becomes a region of peace again, I would still go to see what is left.

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    1. I don't think Damascus is going to make anyone's short list

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  6. Damascus. The name conjures the exotic for me

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    1. There is something eciting about being in what may be the oldest inhabited city in the world

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  7. You're a brave, brave man to even fantasize this visit. Admittedly, I had no idea where Damascus is, nor anything about it. Thanks for the education. I shall hereafter keep it off my bucket list.

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  8. Damascus I know you talk about a beautiful place. But also we called damascos to apricots here, I dont know why!

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    1. I would think that dates would be more of a Damascus product.

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  9. I see enough of Damascus through the lens of the reporters on the evening news. I agree with Twain, I have no need to see it up close. I"m not brave enough for such an adventure, although the history of it makes it a fascinating place.

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    1. Twain's description through the crumbling Ottoman empire is pretty sad--interestingly he was calling for Russia to take over the place (and a 150 years later, they are in the area)

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  10. I made mention of Damascus in one of my books. Seems like an interesting place with an interesting internaional airport so I included it.

    I’m exploring different types of dreams and their meanings.
    D is for Daydreaming and Downloads
    Stephen Tremp’s Breakthrough Blogs

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    1. Yeah, that airport could be interesting which rebels in the hills armed with shoulder-fired missiles. :)

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  11. I can pass on Damascus, but I'd love to see Petra in nearby Jordan.

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  12. It sounds exotic and historical. Great D post.

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  13. Damascus has seen a lot of violence over the years.

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  14. Reminds me of this song:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv4AZrpqce8&list=PL8B7DCDF28F97C83F&index=7

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