Syria

hallo to everyone!
I'll be in Damascus on the night of February 3 and I was wondering if you know of any place that will show the Superbowl, the American football final game?
thanks

I'm off with some friends on a tour of Syria and Jordan; the itinerary includes:

• Damascus
• Krak des Chevaliers
• Apamea
• St. Simeon's monastery
• Aleppo
• Rasafa
• Mari
• Palmyra
• Jerash
• Petra

I'm interested in doing some reading apart from guidebooks, so would love some recommendations of travel literature and light historical reading related to the above places.

Thanks in advance,

P.

Hi there,

I'm about to visit Syria in April but still want to get in touch with my family.

Roaming from my country is not cheap and my cell can't access VoiP. I heard that Syriatel has a prepaid SIM for only USD4 but not sure if the SIM itself and the money refill card are easy to find.

Does anyone ever use it??

I'll be travelling from Australia to Turkey, Syria and then returning to Turkey. I intend to use Mastercard as much as possible but otherwise rely on US dollars of which I have some leftover from previous trips and it's been building up a bit. Would I be better off using up the USD first and then resorting to ATMs or vice versa? Secondly, should I change USD at the Turkey/Syria border or wait until I get to Aleppo?

Hi,

I am looking to go to Syria in late March for about 12 days (making the Istanbul - Aleppo train journey) to find and hopefully record traditional Syrian music. How would be the best way of going about this? Are there any concerts / festivals on at that time? I am equally interested in religious music (including Syrian Orthodox music) and entertainment music, party music etc.
As my trip requires funding from a third party, I need to prove to them that I can be sure of finding some music…

What do you prefer, Lonely Planet's "Syria and Lebanon" from 2004 or Bradt's "Syria" guide from 2006? Please give me your opinions as I'm about to order on Amazon :-)
Thanks in advance

It was my intention to post this information earlier but as I had lost the necessary information, I couldn't do so earlier.

But this is good news for visitors to Hama. This city has very few decent restaurants, especially in the city centre. There is now an excellent new restaurant, right at the entrance of ( what remains of ) the Old City, called ASPASIA. You can find it by walking north from the round about at the Noria in the heart of the city, along Sharia Abu el-Feda street, turn right…

two bedroom fullyfurnished airconditioned apratment,5km from citycentre,3km from old city USD 400 per month
or USD 25 per day (minimum 4 days) inclusive ,gas, water,electric,and car parking.5 minutes walk to the largest shopping centre in Syria

Is it true that travellers cheques are useless in Syria? I dont want to carry large amount of cash with me.

Hello,

I have a work trip to Damascus and I am planning to spend 2 nights in Palmyra afterwards.

My plane back to Switzerland is at 3.30 pm on a Saturday; I was planning to leave that early morning from Palmyra and go directly to the airport in Damascus. I should be there around noon.

As I do not want to rely on buses given that times are short, I was planning to take a taxi (we are 2 people) from Damascus to Palymira and back.

Do you have any idea how much it would be (reasonably and after…