Syria from Past to Present

10 Days

Day1

Arrival in Damascus

Arrival – Transfer to Damascus – overnight at the hotel.

Day2

Damascus – Hama – Apamea – Aleppo

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Departure towards Hama to admire its famous norias: large wooden wheels, installed on the edge of the Orontes and which have not stopped turning since the fourteenth century to raise the water to distribute in the city. The rustic beauty of these old machines is striking, their regular song seems to come from the depths of time.
• Arrival to Aleppo, free time in the souks and possibility of relaxing in a hammam.
• Dinner in a restaurant over Night at the hotel.

Day3

Aleppo City Tour

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Visit of the second city of Syria.
• A flourishing metropolis since the 3rd millennium BC, Aleppo has been fighting with Damascus for the title of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city. The old city has undoubtedly the most beautiful souks of the Middle East. Lunch during the visit.
• The citadel: stands in the middle of the city and dominates it from the height of its fifty meters. It has admirably designed towers and is distinguished by its entrances made with perfection to prevent any enemy intrusion and its iron gates.
• Caravanserais: They were intended for the accommodation of traders on the move and their goods. They are famous for their decorated facades, high arched entrances and huge wooden doors that closed at nightfall.
• The souks: The old souks covered with Aleppo are distinguished by their coffered vaults and their enormous cupolas. Most date back to the 15th and 16th centuries. These are real living museums that offer us a true image of what were the commercial districts and the animation that reigned in the Middle Ages. Each souk specializes in selling a type of product. In the charming souks you can also find authentic Bedouin handicrafts, as well as rugs, fabrics and many varieties of delicacies to enjoy, such as the famous Aleppo pistachios, honey-based pastries, almonds and fruits. dry that will make happy the most greedy. You will do the best shopping in the Orient …
• Dinner in a restaurant. overnight at the hotel.

Day4

Aleppo - Homs - Crack des Chevaliers - Al Mishtaya

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Departure towards Homs, previously known as Emisa or Emesa, is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate.
• Visit Saint Mary of the Holy Belt Cathedral is a historical Syrian Orthodox cathedral, and khalid ibn walid mosque.
• Continue to the Crack des Chevaliers, the most famous fortress of the Middle Ages. The crusaders made it the basic element of their system of strongholds on the coast. It is so vast and so impregnable that it has become the symbol of a whole era of bloody struggles between Muslims and Crusaders …
• Dinner in AlMishtaya at restaurant. Overnight at the hotel Tartous.

Day5

Al Mishtaya - Safita Tower - Ugarit - Lattakia

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Departure towards  Safita Tower, is located on a site where remains of the Phoenician settlement were discovered. It’s square is a chapel dedicated to St. Michael  and serving the Greek Orthodox  community of the city.
• Continue to Ugarit, a coastal town north of Lattakia.
• Ugarit became famous thanks to the discovery of tablets of the oldest consonantal alphabet known to date. The first habitat, a large fortified village, dates back to the 8th millennium BC. The two immense palaces, later constructions, yielded archives and literary archives, attesting to an astonishing diversity of languages ​​and five writing systems, including the consonantal alphabetical or Ugaritic script which dates from the 14th century BC AD.
• Dinner and overnight in Lattakia.

Day6

Lattakia - Saladin Castle - Amrit - Tartous

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Departure towards the Saladin Castle.
• Beautiful citadel built by the Franks in the middle of the forests, on a rocky peak. It allowed to control the roads coming from and going towards Lattakia.
• The history of this stronghold is long: the Phoenicians had already fortified the place, Alexander the Great seized it, as well as the Byzantines a few centuries later. It is the Crusaders who, in the twelfth century, will give the castle its current appearance. At the time, it was called “Château de Saône” (named after a crusader). Its current name was only awarded in 1957, commemorating Saladin’s seizure of the place in 1188.
• Resumption of the road direction to Amrit, the classical Marathus, was a Phoenician port located near present-day Tartous in Syria. Founded in the third millennium BC, Marat was the northernmost important city of ancient Phoenicia and a rival of nearby Arwad
• Dinner and overnight at the hotel in Tartous.

Day7

Tartous – Maaloula – Saydnaya - Damascus

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Departure from Tartous to Maaloula. The monastery of Maaloula contains a portrait of the Virgin believed to have been painted by St. Luke. The little houses of the village cling to the face of an enormous rock; they look suspended in mid-air. The inhabitants still speak Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus Christ. The word Maaloula means “entrance” in Aramaic.
• Continuation to the Syrian town of Saydnaya has more than forty churches, chapels, and monasteries. The most prominent among them is the convent of the Virgin Mary, one of the most important institutions in the Patriarchate of Antioch. Since the middle ages, most pilgrims and travelers on their way to the Holy Land would stop at Saydnaya in order to pray before the miraculous icon of the Virgin and to receive her blessing. According to tradition, this image was painted by St Luke himself, and many miracles have been attributed to it in the course of time.
• Back to Damascus dinner and overnight.

Day8

Damascus – Bosra - Damascus

• Breakfast at the hotel. Departure towards the South of Syria.
• Visit Bosra, a very ancient city, already mentioned in the inscriptions of Akhenaton, in the 14th century BC. The most important of its monuments is the famous Roman Theater (2nd century AD), the one of the most beautiful and best preserved in the world. It is 45 meters long and has a depth of 8 meters. Its stands can accommodate seventeen thousand spectators.
• Back to Damascus_ overnight and dinner at the hotel.

Day9

Damascus City Tour

• Breakfast at the hotel. meet our guide Then The tour starts with our guide to taking you.
• The National Museum:  Its visit provides an overview of the civilizations that have succeeded in Syrian soil. It contains statues, seals, jewelry, masks, mosaics, tablets and weavings from the most important sites in the country.
• The Umayyad Mosque: which is the best example of Arabic Islamic architecture that dates back to the 8th century A.D; The tour will also include a stroll in the old Souks to enjoy the oriental fragrance Located in the heart of the Medina, the mosque is distinguished by its prayer room, its courtyard and its walls covered with mosaics.
• El-Azem Palace: Not far from the Great Mosque, in the labyrinth of the souk is the palace El-Azem. It is considered as the sumptuous model of the Damascene house whose exterior simplicity and sobriety do not suggest anything about a beautiful and rich interior, with many varieties of flowers, fruit trees and water jets.
• Saint Ananian Church: It is of particular importance because it is attached to the memory of Saint Paul. Before his conversion to Christianity he had a vision here that blinded him for several days and gave him an unshakeable faith.
• Souk Al-Hamidiye: The most beautiful souk of Damascus. Its shops display all sorts of goods, especially clothes, fabrics, pastries and handicrafts.

• Dinner in a restaurant then overnight in Damascus.

Day10

Departure

Back to trips page

Book Trip