Southwest Syria - Notes

The area around Damascus contains some fascinating places, most of which are unfortunately quite difficult to get to without your own transport. Luckily both of the places shown here are quite easy to reach by bus (and buses in Syria are incredibly cheap, reasonably quick and sometimes even comfortable.)
Maalulla is a small town about an hour's drive north of Damascus. The locals are predominently members of the Syrian church, which is a branch of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Aramaic is still widely spoken in Maalulla and two adjoining villages, much as it was spoken 2000 years ago, though arabic seems to be taking over now for everyday purposes.
140km south of Damascus is the extraordinary Roman town of Bosra. Although not as famous as Palmyra, Bosra is, like the 'dead cities' in the north, an excellent place for getting a picture of how a Roman town would have looked. Walk down the main street of the modern village and you will be walking on the original Roman flagstones of the cardo maximus. The absolute high-point of a trip to Bosra however is the theatre - one of the best preserved Roman theatres anywhere with a vast 15,000 seat auditorium and a large, beautifully decorate stage area. No matter how much you read or how many pictures you see of it, nothing can quite prepare for the shock of walking out of a dark tunnel into the vastness of the theatre itself.