Haleb Haleb

It seems to be hotter today in Aleppo and it turns out that yesterday was especially cool. Still there is a good breeze and it is not unbearable... ifot particularly sensible to be walking around town in the middle of the day, which is why we are back at the hotel, Fred taking another snooze and me loading up some more photos.

So we are enjoying our backpacker experience, at the Zahert Al-Rabih hostel (Spring Flower in English). At first it seeemd we hads stumbled into the set of Midnight Express as the guy on the door was still half asleep and seemed to be doing a good impression of Max. The stairways were dark through exposed old brick/rock work, with inlays of Arabic texts in stone. Anyway, Fred was won over by the promise of air conditioning in the room and this was ours for two nights. There's a big crowd arriving tomorrow so we may have to move on, which'd be a pity seeing as are hoping to be here for five nights.

Today, we went on a city tour, which promised a lot, but ended up being a trek through the same souk and caravanaserai's as yesterday but with the added attraction of a guided tour around the impressive Citadel. Think Kingdom of Heaven, think Lord of the Rings (Helm's Deep or Gondor) or even Troy, this was the real thing. A citadel which protected the city for century aftyer century and was never broken or breached. Impressive from a distance, it gets even better when walking up the bridge over the 20 metre deep moat to access the citadel itself. The walls rise above you, layers added as time went one, massive stone building blocks and giant arabic inscriptions, friezes of serpents and lions and feet thick wooden and iron gates. Amazing. And one clever thing.... the gate did not face outwards back towards the bridge, no it faced to the side. In this way it could withstand the battering rams (the ones which breached both Helm's Deep and Gondor). A very clever idea and presumably a very old one too, it is surprising that other defensive structures didn't follow the same design.

Just lost a bunch of text as the computer lost connection just as I was saving my work... how typical....

Anyway, I was talking about our visit to the hammam, how ridiculous the prices are here - from normal home prices to incredibly cheap, how good and fresh the food is here and about our plans for today and tomorrow.... oh well... here goes....

Just to say that it is Sunday and we had hoped to go to church but we have not done so because no-one can tell us where the churches are and at what time they are open. Although the Christian communities have in many cases been around here for an awful long time, it turns out taht many of the churches are not to be found near the centre. I had been reading From the Holy Mountain, by William Dalrymple on the train down and he had mentioned the existence of an Urfalee church (they are refugees from Urfa in eastern Turkey) where they are supposed to sing the most ancient forms of Christian songs still surviving... this music being the basis of the later Gregorian chants.

The plan instead is to go to the hammam for a good scrub and massage.

But first we will visit our fruit juice man. He is just around the corner here and can make juice from any mix of fruit you would want - peach, apricot, apple, pear, orange, banana, strawberry, blackberry... mmmm... a whole pint for half a euro.

With food, fruit and drink so abundant, so fresh and so cheap, we are probably eating more than we need. But food is like love.... if it is offered it is silly to turn it down