April 10 Damascus
Sunday     
Arrive at the Damascus airport at 10:40 PM. Welcome to Syria! We are warmly greeted and assisted to the hotel for dinner (room service) and overnight.  You will thoroughly enjoy the deluxe hotels we have selected for this tour. Luggage handling is provided throughout. D 

*****Damascus Cham Palace

April 11   DAMASCUS – PALMYRA VISIT
Monday
After breakfast, our coach, driver and guide are ready to begin our journey to Palmyra (245 kms/152 miles), a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Palmyra is an Oriental town built in a palm grove on a desert commercial cross roads linking the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. It provided an easy trade route from Asia to the Roman Europe. This trade was the source of Palmyra tremendous wealth. 

Although it was built before the Roman era, the city was later reshaped to look like a Roman city. Colonnade streets, a triumph arch, Diocletian bath and an Agora were built. The city however, kept temples devoted to the oriental gods: Bel, Baal Shamin and Nebo. Palmyrenian people developed as well a distinctive funerary style: Families' Tower Tombs, a kind of show off displaying the family's wealth and power to the city. Many hypogea  (underground tombs) are also present in Palmyra and show the refinement and wealth of the city.
Archaeological museum displays some of the superb items unearthed during the archaeological excavations 

Our visit  includes the museum, the temples of Bel, Baal Shamin and Nebo, the Roman bath, the tetrapyle, the theatre, Diocletian's camp and the valley of the tombs. We’ll take a lunch break during the visits.  Dinner and overnight at the hotel. B-L-D

*****Dedeman Palmyra

April 12  PALMYRA – DOURA EUROPOS – MARI – DEREZZOR
Tuesday   
After a fortifying reakfast at the hotel, we begin our drive to Doura Europos, a major Greek and Roman city founded in 300 BC by Macedonians.  Then visit Mari, one of the great Mesopotamian city-states from the third millennium BC where civilization began well upstream on the Euphrates profiting immensely from control on the trades routes. Lunch break en route during the visits. Continue to Derezzor.  Dinner and overnight at the Cham hotel. B-L-D

*****Derezzor Furat Cham

April 13 DEREZZOR – HALABIYA – RAQQA – RASSAFA – ALEPPO
Wednesday          
Our first stop today is Halabiya a fortified town on the bank of Euphrates River. It was kept by the Palmyrenians to defend the eastern border of Roman empire against the Persians.

Our next stop is Raqqa, a city founded by Selucos Nicator II Callinicos in about 244 B.C. The Ommayd Calif Hicham built two palaces in it. The city was constructed by the Abbaside ruler Al-Munser in 754-775 on a slightly modified city plan of Bagdad with a shape of a horseshoe; he made it the capital of the rich province of Jezira in North East of Syria.

Next visit Rassafa, the old Sergiopolis named after St. Sergius who was martyred by the Romans around the year 300 A.D. This became the focal point of religious pilgrimages in the last decades of the Byzantine period.

Lunch break en route during the visits. We end the day in Aleppo with  dinner and overnight at another of our deluxe hotels. B-L-D

*****Sheraton Aleppo

April 14  ALEPPO – SAINT SIMEON – ALEPPO
Thursday    
This morning we visit Aleppo beginning with the museum, the citadel, the famous covered souks, the Omeyad mosque, the 16^th-century Christian quarter of Jedaydeh. After a  lunch break, in the afternoon we make a short drive to Saint Simeon to see its cathedral.  During the fifth century, Saint Simeon stayed 40 years on top of a column here!. Return to Aleppo for dinner and overnight at the hotel. B-L-D

*****Sheraton Aleppo

April 15 ALEPPO – EBLA – SERGELLA – APAMEA – HAMA
Friday                 
Bid farewell to Aleppo and head to  Ebla, the old capital that was discovered in 1977 by Paolo Matthiae. Its royal archives contains 15000 tablets from the third millennium BC.

On to Sergella, one of the 500 dead cities of the north. These ghost cities built between the 4th and 7th century disappeared around the 9th century of reasons still unknown. This site comprises extensive remains of houses, a church, baths, tombs and sarcophagi. We find a complete Byzantine settlement in a superb and isolated setting.  

Later visit the archeological site of Apamea and the mosaics museum. End the day in Hama.

Dinner and overnight the hotel. B-L-D

***** Hama Afamia Cham

April 16 HAMA – SALADIN CASTLE – UGARIT – LATTAKIA

Saturday     Breakfast at the hotel, visit Hama with its norias (giant water wheels) located on the Orontes River. Then visit Saladin castle a huge fortress built by the crusaders on top of a mountain. It was the most powerful castle of the principality of Antioch until Sultan Saladin overtook it  in July 1188.

After a lunch break, continue to Ugarit, where Neolithic remains were found at the base of the tell (hill).

On to Lattakia, located on the picturesque coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Dinner and overnight at the hotel. B-L-D

*****Lattakia Le Meridien

April 17 LATTAKIA – MARQAB – TARTOUS – KRAK DES CHEVALIERS – MAALOULA
Sunday DAMASCUS
This will be a day to remember! Our first visit is to  Marqab castle, “Castle of the Watchtower” located at the point where the coastal plain narrows to a precarious passage between the sea and the mountains. A Crusader fortress, it was one of the major strongholds of the Knights Hospitaller. Renovation was begun in 2007.

Then visit Tartous, a Phoenician city built as an extension of the main settlement in the island of Arwad (Aradus). In 1123 Crusaders began the construction of the Cathedral Church of Our Lady of Tortosa a fine example of Romanesque.

Continue to visit Krak des Chevaliers one of the most impressive crusaders fortresses.  Taken in 1110 from the Emir of Homs  by Tancred, Regent of Antioch, the Castle was given to the Count of Tripoli. In 1114, Raymond II, Count of Tripoli transferred the Krak along with his other dependent castles to the Knights Hospitallers. The order massively expanded the existing fortress after 1170. The Krak survived 2 major Muslim challenges but was ultimately conquered by the Mamelukes under the Sultan Baibars on 21 February 1271.

After a lunch break, it is on to Maaloula. This city has three claims to fame: its setting, its early Christian associations, and the resistance of the villagers (until recently) to the final replacement of Aramaic by Arabic as the language of communication. There may be some doubt about the extent to which Aramaic, the language spoken by Christ and the popular lingua franca of the area until the Arab conquest in the 7th century, has remained in active use to the present day. Even the vestigial survival of West Aramaic (Syriac) as a spoken tongue indicates the tenacity with which the inhabitants of Maaloula have clung to their identity.

Drive back to Damascus completing our circle route. B-L-D

*****Damascus Cham Palace

April 18  DAMASCUS VISIT
Monday      
Damascus is considered by many to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.  Mentioned in the Bible, the town was established in a large oasis fed by the river Barada.  It was capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, which ruled for nearly a century over a vast empire stretching from the Indus to Spain. Our exploration includes the National Museum, Omeyad Mosque, Azem Palace, and the famous covered souks.  Via Recta (the street called Straight) , continue to visit Anania's Church, to see Saint Paul's window. We’ll also see two of the Gates of the City:  Bab Charki and Bab Touma.  Tonight is our farewell dinner. B-L-D

*****Damascus Cham Palace

April 19 DAMASCUS – DEPARTURE
Tuesday     
Breakfast at the hotel, transfer to Damascus airport with assistance.

Is anyone interested in an an extention to Lebanon?