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The countryside is particularly rich and fertile in
these parts. The orchards and market gardens are protected from the
winds by great cypress hedges. The citrus groves are especially
carefully tended. Irrigation channels and watering systems ensure bumper
crops of vegetables. Cornfields alternate with fields of sunflowers over
much of the landscape. Where it gets drier olives take over once more.
The first thirty kilometers of the road from Lattakia to Antalya lie
thus through very pleasant agricultural areas; as soon as we reach the
first foothills of the northern mountain ranges the forests begin. They
are evergreen forests of good-sized trees -an extremely unusual
landscape in Syria and hence very strictly protected by the authorities.
The forests have become a favorite week-end recreation place for the
people of Lattakia; every Friday there is an exodus towards the resort
of Qastal Moaf, Nabaein and Kassab as well as to the beach at Ras al
Bassit.
South of Lattakia the countryside are quite different
The so-called coast road in fact runs some distance inland and offers
few glimpses of the sea. Tourist attractions along the coast are Tartous
and the nearby Isle of Arwad. It is also worth stopping at Jableh and
the Marqab castle en route. Other interesting excursions include trips
into the mountains and valleys to the east of Lattakia, and to the Ras
Shamra site of ancient Ugarit, ten kilometers north of the city. The
valley of the Nahr al Kabir -followed for a while by the road to Jisr al
Shughour and Aleppo- is almost Alpine in feeling only a few kilometers
inland from the sea. The river flows along at a great pace between the
wooded slopes, throwing up pebbly beaches beside its deep meanders.
Small boys - some of them with astonishing fair hair - lead their herds
of goats and cattle, and sometimes flocks of sheep, there to drink. The
shepherds enjoy splashing about in the water too, of course, and they
also collect any driftwood that happens to be about - wood is a precious
commodity all over Syria. The banks of a tributary of the Kabir, which
joint it close to its mouth, just south of Lattakia, are a very similar
kind of terrain. Crops tend to give way to stock in these parts. The
road along this river valley joins the one along the Nahr al Kabir after
making long detours to Haffeh (where there is a turning for Saladin
Castle), and then to the charming "holiday center" in the woods, at
Slenfeh.
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