Entertainment in Syria
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Centre Culturel Français de Damas
All of the foreign cultural centres host performances of classical music, opera and ballet. Most notable is the Centre Culturel Français de Damas, which offers a vibrant programme of concerts and cultural events, from piano recitals to jazz (local and foreign) and mixed-media happenings with video installations. Its summer music festivals, held in atmospheric Old City locations, feature everything from Oriental jazz to the well-regarded Women's Orchestra of Oriental Music.
Check café noticeboards and the centre's website, or phone for information.
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Inhouse Coffee
This funky café with its lime-and-black décor is always busy with local hipsters smoking, chatting and checking their email on their PowerBooks. It serves excellent espresso and myriad variations of macchiato, latte and decaf coffees. Try the iced spiced chai latte or spicy espresso with cinnamon on top.
There are happy hours between 16:00 and 17:00 and between 21:00 and midnight, when you get 50% off coffee and food - ideal if you're on a budget and hanging out for good coffee. There's also complimentary wireless internet.
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Al-Nawfara
Nestled in the shadow of the Umayyad Mosque's eastern wall, 'The Fountain' is the most atmospheric of Damascus' traditional coffeehouses. This is where you can watch Abu Shady, the last of the hakawati (professional storytellers). Every evening around 19:00 (give or take an hour or two), Abu Shady takes the chair to tell his version of fables and folk tales, and while his performance is in Arabic, it's enthralling.
If you can't find a table here, head across the lane to Ash-Shams, which occupies a former hammam.
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Dar Al-Assad for Arts and Culture
This is home to the superb Opera Theatre, Drama Theatre and Multi-Purpose Hall, all venues for nearly nightly performances of world-class opera, drama, classical music, and even folk music and pop concerts. Don't miss a performance by the acclaimed National Symphony Orchestra. You can pick up a program from Dar Al-Assad, check the website, or see What's On Syria for more details. Tickets are dirt-cheap for such high-quality performances.
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Ash-Sharq al-Awsat
In Central Damascus you'll find a number of simple, old-fashioned coffeehouses, noisy with the staccato clacking of dominoes and backgammon counters. They're frequented mainly by males who sit around puffing nargileh, and women won't always feel comfortable. The rooftop coffeehouse Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, between the blue-tiled Iranian cultural centre and Shoukri al-Quwatli flyover, sees the occasional budget traveller dropping by.
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Cinemas
There is no shortage of Cinemas along Sharia al-Baron and its northern extension Sharia Yousef al-Azmeh. Most of what they screen is martial arts, soft porn and trashy B-movies. More entertaining are the airbrushed posters outside advertising the movies. These slightly risqué posters, used to entice the almost exclusively male customers, generally depict the very scenes that have been removed by the censor.
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Arabica
In Al-Aziziah, Syria's Starbucks does delicious iced lattés as well as providing a fascinating slice of life that you won't experience in the Old City, especially after 18:00, when the music goes up a few notches and Aleppo's shebab (youth) spill out on to the footpath. The café offers free wireless internet and if you don't have your own laptop they'll even lend you one.
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Back Door
Popular spots for DJs and live bands on weekends, and films midweek, include Back Door. Back Door's DJs spin an eclectic selection of sounds, from hip-hop to Oriental lounge, and it also hosts the occasional live performance of tarab, an intense, improvisational form of Middle East music; reserve a table for Thursday night and don't arrive before midnight.
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Umayyad Palace Restaurant
This restaurant offers a meal and floorshow package that includes a band and dervishes, but if you go on a night when there isn't a tour group, the performance is half-hearted and disinterested at best. You're better off heading to one of the many Old City restaurants and cafés that feature an oud (Arabian lute) player in the evenings.
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Bar Saloon
This endearingly dingy little liquor store-cum-bar is frequented by a motley crew of bohemian types, elderly locals, foreign Arabic students and travellers, all engaged in heated debate of some sort. Visitors might feel they've encroached on some sort of clique, but it's less exclusive than first appearances suggest and the beer's cheap.
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XO Bar
This elegant, low-lit, gentlemen's-club-style bar, with plush sofas and Orientalist paintings on the wall, is ideal for whispered conversations - of romantic couples, local politicians and businessmen, and journalists and peacekeepers just back from Iraq. Travellers head here for a cocktail before or after dinner at Al-Hallabi.
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Majmu al-Rawda al-Siyahi
This big, shady, garden café (whose name means something along the lines of 'Tourist Garden Association') is on the north side of the main street, close to the clock tower. A coffee here is a must just to take in the vibe, especially during summer evenings when the place is packed with locals.
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Marmar
Tucked down a tiny passageway signed by a pink neon calligraphic squiggle, this pub is one of Damascus' best for DJs and live music. On weekends it pounds and heaves with a sweaty, young, bohemian crowd of locals and foreigners, while midweek sees the occasional film screened on its walls.
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Cinema de Cham
Home to the Damascus International Film Festival, this excellent cinema screens everything from European art house to Hollywood blockbusters and the occasional Middle East film subtitled in English. Check What's On Syria to find out what's showing or just drop by the cinema.
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T-Square
This funky contemporary café-eatery next door to Arabica is where Aleppo's hipsters hang out. It's a great place for meeting locals and people-watching. Like Arabica, the place buzzes in the evenings, when the tables are jammed and it's standing-room only on the pavement.
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Galerie Abdal
A loud and lively vibe and regular art exhibitions have made this a long-standing favourite with artists and students, and it's very female-friendly. With a similar feel and attracting a similar crowd, Moulaya next door is another arty place that's perennially popular.
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Salé Sucré
Affluent Damascenes, old and young, love this charming café-bakery. It's the place to head if you're craving good coffee and European café staples such as crusty French baguettes, quiches and German-style grain breads. The tangy citron tarts are sublime.
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Beite
Next door to Majmu al-Rawda al-Siyahi, this is a chic, new, two-storey café. The name translates to 'my home'; you have to press the buzzer beside the massive wooden to enter. Its covered rooftop terrace is where Homs' affluent set meet.
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An-Nadi Coffeehouse
An open-air coffeehouse, An-Nadi Coffeehouse , is next to the big city-centre noria and facing the Choob Coffeehouse across the river. It is frequented predominantly by men, so some women may not feel comfortable here.
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Domino
A sheesha café serving light food by day and a casual bar in the early evening, Domino curtains off its windows and becomes a full-blown dance club after 23:00. It's one of the Old City's hottest night spots.
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Al-Sahel
This upstairs coffeehouse is close to Bab al-Faraj and the clock tower. The place is grungy (in an old Aleppan sort of way) and the entrance is in the side street, through the reception of the Al-Sahel Hotel.
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Choob Coffeehouse
The open-air Choob Coffeehouse is set in a garden of shady eucalyptus trees and has views of the river and norias. It is frequented predominantly by men, so some women may not feel comfortable here.
reviewed
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Artists' Syndicate Bar
This al fresco garden bar-cum-restaurant in residential Salihiyya may not be the most exciting place for a drink, but it's one of the few places in this area and is mildly intriguing.
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Beit Geddi
Similar in style to Beit Jabri, and just across the lane, the fairy-lit Beit Geddi has a musician playing the oud from around 20:00 on Friday and Saturday nights.
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Piano Bar
This old-fashioned bar-restaurant is stuck in a bit of a time warp, but it's worth dropping in to check out the spectacle of Syrian karaoke.
reviewed