Syria

Day 14 - Mon 11 Dec 06

Breakfast is served in a little dungeon room, and it's the usual Syrian affair - but I get the addition of some oranges today. It's another attempt to buy a train ticket today, so I walk up to the station - and success the man is there! He actually issues two tickets, a Syrian one and a Turkish one all for 3070SYP one way (Ł30).

I walk back to the hotel and get some bananas at a road side market for tomorrow, and on a whim I popped into a mobile phone shop near the Baron. I get a two prong charger for my phone for 100SYP and it weighs next to nothing!

I've found a hole in the wall shop near the Citadel that does good Pan au Chocolate, so I head up there for breakfast, before eventually getting back to the hotel. I wrote a few postcards and headed out to post them. While out I changed my last $50 travellers cheque - but I had to go all the way up to the Saudi bank, as the Syrian bank wouldn't touch them. Then it was back down to the 'supermarket' near the clock tower to get provisions for the train trip tomorrow.

I decided to have a bit of a blow out for my last meal in Aleppo and the LP talked about an Italian restaurant, and since I've been eating local food since I arrived I thought "what the heck". The restaurant took a bit of finding as it's at the bottom of a little alley way. Inside it's very nice with lots of Italian and French(?) things hanging from the walls. Focaccia, Pizza and Profiteroles (filled with ice-cream) - I cleared the lot. Well, I'm not going to have a proper meal for a few days!

Back to the Hotel to do a clothes wash as the radiator in the room was roasting hot!