Category Middle East
My Top Ten Big Cities Outside Europe #6 – Beirut
#6 – Beirut, Lebanon (population estimated 1.3 million) The hardships currently faced by the Lebanese in general and the Beirutis in particular are hard to bear. The devastating explosion caused by negligent storage of fertiliser is symbolic of a incompetent, corrupt and careless regime. One can only hope that this changes very soon. I visited […]
My Top Ten Big Cities Outside Europe #7 – Damascus
#7 – Damascus, Syria (population estimated 1.8 million) I visited Damascus in 2009, two years before civil war broke out. As a government stronghold, the main city has seen relatively little damage compared to the territories that were held by ‘rebel factions’ or ISIS. We travelled by bus from the Roman ruins at Palmyra and […]
Beirut – A Scarred City
The explosion at the port of Beirut and the terrible aftermath is painful to watch. A city and its people that suffered so much in the bloody civil war of the ’80s are in anguish once more. It never rains but it pours – economic hardship, Covid 19 and now this awful avoidable tragedy. I […]
Music On My Travels – Years 2000 to 2019
This is the final part of my series highlighting the music that has accompanied me on my travels and that evokes extra special memories each time that I listen to it since. In the last 20 years I have been to many magical places, starting with Lebanon in May 2000 and culminating with Azerbaijan in […]
Friday Photo – Taxi Driver, Lebanon
I have recently published a series of posts showing my top twenty travel photos. This one was very unfortunate not to make it. It comes from a superb year 2000 independent tour of Lebanon. We hired this guy to take us from Beirut and through the scenic Bekaa Valley to the Roman site (and Hezbollah […]
A-Z April Challenge (Cities Visited) – P for Petra
Hamish and I visited the ‘Rose City’ of Petra in 2005 as part of an independent tour of Jordan. I pick up as we journey from Madaba near Amman. Journey to Petra, Jordan. We set off bright and early for what promised to be the highlight of our trip – we were not to be […]
My Top Ten Big Cities Outside Europe – Number One, Aleppo, Syria
Aleppo, Syria – population 1.8 million (estimated) Vying with Damascus to be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world (6,000 years and still counting despite the recent devastation), Aleppo became my favourite from the moment that we met in May 2009. I had travelled by train from Istanbul to Adana in Turkey and then […]
