Discover Damascus   In History Visiting Damascus   The city is built at the foot of a buttress of the Anti-Lebanon, the Djebel Qassioun, at the border of a fertile plain, the Ghouta, through which runs the Barada river. A long time ago, the city spread outside the fortified wall southward, making the quarter of Midan, crossed by the road to Jordan, and at the end of the Ottoman epoch and the beginning of the Mandate, extended towards the old quarter of Salhiyeh, at the foot of Djebel Qassioun. Since independence, Damascus has grown considerably to include the road crossings to Beirut, Jordan and Kuneitra, meeting sometimes old villages of the Ghouta that have been further reduced by industrial compounds. The latter have made the Syrian capital the most important manufacturing centre of the country, bypassing Aleppo. Damascus, now over four thousand years old since its first mention in historical annals, has been the object of the most flattering appellations by more than one author seduced by the beauty of its site. It has been named the beauty-spot of the world, the calyx among flowers, a moon-halo on earth, and many other names from paradise. It is now dangerous to let one's imagination wander to the poetically enchanting shores whence came its far admirers, as poetical illusion will soon disappear leaving in its place a rather disconcerting sight if one limits one's Damascene experience to the central quarters so noisy and overcrowded with cars, trucks and shoppers.
© UR Travel 2006